Gizmodohttp://www.businessinsider.com/category/gizmodo
en-usFri, 09 Dec 2016 12:09:02 -0500Fri, 09 Dec 2016 12:09:02 -0500The latest news on Gizmodo from Business Insiderhttp://static3.businessinsider.com/assets/images/bilogo-250x36-wide-rev.pngBusiness Insiderhttp://www.businessinsider.com
http://www.businessinsider.com/r-senate-committee-seeks-answers-from-zuckerberg-over-news-selection-2016-5Republican senators are demanding answers from Facebook over its media scandalhttp://www.businessinsider.com/r-senate-committee-seeks-answers-from-zuckerberg-over-news-selection-2016-5
Tue, 10 May 2016 17:07:00 -0400Amy Tennery
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/5732267c5124c94d428b456b-450-300/senate-committee-seeks-answers-from-zuckerberg-over-news-selection-2016-5.jpg" alt="The sun rises behind the entrance sign to Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park before the company's IPO launch, May 18, 2012. REUTERS/Beck Diefenbach/File Photo" border="0" /></p><p>A U.S. Senate committee launched an inquiry on Tuesday into how social media website Facebook selects its news stories after a report that company employees blocked news about conservative issues from its "trending" list.</p>
<p>The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation asked Facebook Chairman and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg in a letter to answer questions about the company's news curation practices and its trending topics section.</p>
<p>The investigation comes after Gizmodo reported on Monday that a former Facebook employee claimed workers "routinely suppressed news stories of interest to conservative readers," while "artificially" adding other stories to the trending list.</p>
<p>"Facebook must answer these serious allegations and hold those responsible to account if there has been political bias in the dissemination of trending news," said U.S. Senator John Thune, the chairman of the committee.</p>
<p>The letter to Facebook includes requests for information on the organizational structure for the "Trending Topics feature."</p>
<p>Adam Jentleson, deputy chief of staff to Democratic Senator Harry Reid, balked at the request in a statement provided to Reuters.</p>
<p>"The Republican Senate refuses to hold hearings on [Supreme Court nominee] Judge [Merrick] Garland, refuses to fund the President&rsquo;s request for Zika aid and takes the most days off of any Senate since 1956, but thinks Facebook hearings are a matter of urgent national interest," Jentleson said.</p>
<p>A Facebook spokesman said the company has received the Senate letter and is reviewing it. They also denied the Gizmodo report Tuesday in a statement provided to Reuters.</p>
<p>"After an initial review, no evidence was found that the anonymous allegations are true," a spokesman said.</p>
<p><img class="center" src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/564e1329112314ac008b6823-1238-929/rtr3chpd_fotor.jpg" alt="Mark Zuckerberg question mark" data-mce-source="Robert Galbraith/flickr" data-link="http://pictures.reuters.com/archive/FACEBOOK--GM1E91G06I002.html" />Tom Stocky, the vice president of Search at Facebook, responded to the allegations Monday night in a lengthy post published to the social media site saying there are "strict guidelines" for trending topic reviewers who "are required to accept topics that reflect real world events."</p>
<p>He added that those guidelines are under "constant review" and that his team would "continue to look for improvements."</p>
<p>Katie Drummond, the editor-in-chief of Gizmodo, called her publication's story "accurate" in a statement released to Reuters Tuesday.</p>
<p>Gizmodo's report alarmed several social media users, with some conservatives in particular criticizing Facebook for alleged bias.</p>
<p>"'If a Conservative Speaks - and Facebook Censors Him - Does He Make a Sound?'" Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (@ScottWalker) wrote on Twitter Tuesday, with a link to a National Review story that detailed the allegations against Facebook.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>(Reporting By Amy Tennery; additional reporting by Dustin Volz in Washington; Editing by Alan Crosby)</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-senate-committee-seeks-answers-from-zuckerberg-over-news-selection-2016-5#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-wozniak-gizmodo-qa-2012-7Steve Wozniak Only Plays One Videogame (AAPL)http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-wozniak-gizmodo-qa-2012-7
Tue, 17 Jul 2012 16:03:00 -0400Dylan Love
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/4e9871e5ecad04c07000000d/steve-wozniak-iphone-4s-white.jpg" border="0" alt="steve wozniak iphone 4S white" /></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/apple" class="hidden_link">Apple</a> co-founder <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/steve-wozniak" class="hidden_link">Steve Wozniak</a> took some time to answer reader questions <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5926688/">over at Gizmodo</a> earlier today.</p>
<p>As one of the most important people in the development of the personal computer, he has a lot of smart opinions and ideas.</p>
<p>But it's not all serious with Wozniak -- he's a prankster and videogame lover with a lot to say.</p>
<p>Here are 10 interesting things we learned from his answers.</p><h3>He still builds things</h3>
<img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/4bad0c2b7f8b9a6e20f80a00-400-300/he-still-builds-things.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p><span>"I did build stuff up until a point when I decided to hire a programmer for the major part of a universal remote control I was developing. These days I am very busy in the world trying to inspire young innovators and entrepreneurs and haven't the time for development.</span></p>
<p><span>"The last thing I did was a Segway key burner with my son so I could set my own speed limits. I would need a lot of reeducation to be at the same stage today."</span></p>
<p><span><a href="http://gizmodo.com/5926688/"><em>Source: Gizmodo</em></a><br /></span></p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>He has an interesting opinion on drugs</h3>
<img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/4ea70a2e69bedd3913000000-400-300/he-has-an-interesting-opinion-on-drugs.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p><span>"I have never used an illicit drug. I never spoke to Steve Jobs about drugs or heard from him about drugs even a single time. He never brought it up around me.</span></p>
<p><span>"I had many friends in my high school in Cupertino who used LSD (1966-1968) and many bright ones too but (a) I had many ways to have fun and (b) if it would expand my mind, I felt I had a great mind and wanted to be judged as myself, not myself plus an aid.</span></p>
<p><span>"I did accept drug use by others and was accepted among them and never was judgmental. I don't have any strong resistance to using LSD someday but after a certain point in your life, what's the point? Don't be judgmental. Don't call yourself right and others, who do different things, wrong. Same for computer and smart phone platforms."</span></p>
<p><span><a href="http://gizmodo.com/5926688/"><em>Source: Gizmodo</em></a></span></p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>He only plays one videogame</h3>
<img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/4feb173cecad04a87e000000-400-300/he-only-plays-one-videogame.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p><span>"I only play the original Gameboy Tetris. I buy cartridges on eBay when needed. I have had some stolen and lost. My kids got too good at newer games so I only focus on a few puzzle-like games to be good at them.</span></p>
<p><span>"I was always #1 in the Nintendo Power listings in 1988 and after they said my name had been in there too many times and wouldn't print it again, I spelled my name backwards (Evets Kainzow) and sent in a photo of my score."</span></p>
<p><span><a href="http://gizmodo.com/5926688/"><em>Source: Gizmodo</em></a></span></p></p>
<br/><br/><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-wozniak-gizmodo-qa-2012-7#he-thinks-ssd-technology-is-a-game-changer-4">See the rest of the story at Business Insider</a> http://www.businessinsider.com/a-treasure-hunter-says-he-has-located-bin-ladens-body-2012-5A Treasure Hunter Says He Has Located Bin Laden’s Bodyhttp://www.businessinsider.com/a-treasure-hunter-says-he-has-located-bin-ladens-body-2012-5
Wed, 02 May 2012 14:16:00 -0400Jesus Diaz
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/4fa178c5ecad04075300000c-350-/bill-warren.jpg" border="0" alt="bill warren" width="350" /></p><p>That guy is Bill Warren, the California treasure hunter who claimed he was <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/International/searching-bin-laden-body-treasure-hunt/story?id=13826193">searching for Osama</a> Bin Laden's dead body back in June 2011. He didn't find him then, but now he claims he has located the cadaver.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.elmundo.es/america/2012/05/01/estados_unidos/1335899841.html">Talking to Spanish newspaper El Mundo</a>, Warren says he has no doubt about where Osama is:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">I've located where they threw him away. I'm the only one with this information. He's 200 miles to the west of the Indian city of Surat.</p>
<p>Warren&mdash;who claims he has discovered more than 200 shipwrecks during his career as a treasure-hunter&mdash;says that bin Laden's body is still at that same location, deep under water. His thought is that, since the Navy weighted down the bag, the body hasn't moved from where it was dropped. He is now trying to rent Russian deep diving equipment to locate his payload, and to conduct DNA tests once he finds him.</p>
<p>At least, that's what he believes. He says he pinpointed the drop point from photos recently released by the U.S. Navy.</p>
<p>Warren is now in Azerbaijan, apparently working for their government in a contract to locate some old ships. But he is ready to start the diving for Osama's body bag: He says he's aiming at starting the mission on June 1, and that he may be able to find the body in "under a week." He also claims that the search would last a maximum of three months. He declares that his only fear is that the U.S. Government would kill him or sink his boat.</p>
<p>Warren is now searching for $200,000 to finance the whole operation (Bill,&nbsp;<a href="http://gizmodo.com/5897449/were-done-with-kickstarter">I suggest Kickstarter</a>). He wouldn't have needed that money had he located the Trinidad, the famous Spanish ship loaded with Aztec gold that sunk off the coast of California in 1540. Warren has repeatedly tried to locate that treasure, once in 1976 and&nbsp;<a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1987-01-08/news/vw-2944_1_treasure-hunter">then again in 1987</a>. Back then he claimed he had located the Trinidad, but obviously he didn't.</p>
<h2><strong>Conspiracy theories</strong></h2>
<p>The same could probably be true with Bin Laden's body. It's highly unlikely that, even if he were right about the location&mdash;and again, there's very little chance he is&mdash;he would be able to find a body bag in the bottom of the deep sea.</p>
<p>Warren says he is doing this because he doesn't "believe the Obama administration" and he wants to have proof that it is really his body. But, if he doesn't believe President Obama and the United States Navy, why would the body be down there at all? If he thinks that they are lying, the most logical thing is to believe that they never buried the body at sea.</p>
<p>But who knows, maybe Bill will prove himself right this time. Or maybe the body will not be there because Osama bin Laden is alive and well, playing cards and drinking mai tais with Elvis and Marilyn, in that secret government paradise island in the middle of the Pacific.</p>
<h2><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/leaked-emails-stratfor-analysts-didnt-believe-laden-was-buried-at-sea-2012-3?nr_email_referer=1#ixzz1tjpJ7Mhz">Don't miss LEAKED STRATFOR EMAILS: Analysts Didn't Believe Bin Laden Was Buried At Sea &gt;</a></h2><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/a-treasure-hunter-says-he-has-located-bin-ladens-body-2012-5#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/the-case-against-google-2012-3The Case Against Googlehttp://www.businessinsider.com/the-case-against-google-2012-3
Thu, 22 Mar 2012 13:23:00 -0400Mat Honan
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/4e97207369beddd042000006/eric-schmidt-larry-page-zeitgeist-09.jpg" border="0" alt="Eric Schmidt Larry Page Zeitgeist '09" /></p><p>For the last two months, you've seen some version of the same story all over the Internet: Delete your search history before Google's new privacy settings take effect. A straightforward piece outlining a rudimentary technique, but also evidence that the search titan has a serious trust problem on its hands.</p>
<p><a href="http://gizmodo.com/5887967/how-to-remove-your-google-search-history-before-googles-new-privacy-policy-takes-effect?tag=google/privacy">Our story</a>&nbsp;on nuking your history was read nearly 200,000 times on this site alone&mdash;and it was a reprint of a piece originally put out by the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks">EFF</a>. Many other outlets republished the same piece.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/q0uuj/how_to_remove_your_google_search_history_before/">The Reddit page linking to the original had more than 1,000 comments</a>. And the topic itself was debated on decidedly<a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/01/29/146062607/public-or-private-keeping-google-from-being-evil">non-techie forums like NPR</a>.</p>
<p>It's not surprising that the tracking debate had people up in arms.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/Press-Releases/2012/Search-Engine-Use-2012.aspx">A Pew Internet study</a>, conducted just before <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/google">Google</a> combined its privacy policies (and after it rolled out personalized search results in Search Plus Your World) found that three quarters of people don't want their search results tracked, and two thirds don't even want them personalized based on prior history.</p>
<p>The bottom line: People don't trust Google with their data. And that's new.</p>
<p>Google is a fundamentally different company than it has been in the past. Its culture and direction have changed radically in the past 18 months. It is trying to maneuver into position to operate in a post-pc, post-Web world, reacting to what it perceives as threats, and moving to where it thinks the puck will be.</p>
<p>At some point in the recent past, the Mountain View brass realized that owning the Web is not enough to survive. It makes sense&mdash;people are increasingly using non Web-based avenues to access the Internet, and Google would be remiss to not make a play for that business. The problem is that in branching out, Google has also abandoned its core principles and values.</p>
<p>Many of us have entered into a contract with the ur search company because its claims to be a good actor inspired our trust. Google has always claimed to put the interests of the user first. It's worth questioning whether or not that's still the case. Has Google reached a point where it&nbsp;<em>must</em> be evil?</p>
<h3><span class="modfont"><strong>Search is Dying</strong></span></h3>
<p>Imagine you woke up tomorrow and Google was gone. You would still be able to search the Web. You could still send email. You could still use maps, make phone calls, watch <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/">videos</a>, network with friends, write blog posts. There would be a period of adjustment, and it would be incredibly inconvenient but you would get by. There are other options.</p>
<p>Some would feel it more than others; Google is a tool of the masses. Despite more than 20 years of the World Wide Web and more than 35 of personal computers, the Internet is still a very troubling place for many people. Google is the cipher they use to make sense of the chaos.</p>
<p>Case in point: A prolific science writer I know tells a story about how his mother calls him every time her Google is broken. What she means is that her Internet is down. But for her, Google&nbsp;<em>is</em>&nbsp;the Internet. And that's true for many, who use its search box as a gateway to the networked world. They get to <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/facebook">Facebook</a> by typing "Facebook" and hitting Search. Without Google, they'd be lost.</p>
<p>Google may not be a utility, but search is a very utility-like service. Search is what Google was built on, and why people go to Google in the first place. And when Google rolled out its newest iteration of search&mdash;Search Plus your World (SPYW)&mdash;people reacted to it like viewing an open grave.</p>
<p>There's a good reason for that revulsion: SPYW is a mess.&nbsp;<a href="http://gizmodo.com/5875571/google-just-made-bing-the-best-search-engine">In trying to deliver personalized results, Google polluted the page with its own inferior products</a>&nbsp;(like Google+ instead of <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/twitter">Twitter</a>,<a href="http://www.google.com/places/">Google Places</a>&nbsp;instead of <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/yelp">Yelp</a>) while banishing competitors to lower listings in the results. Ads are everywhere. The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.google.com/insidesearch/relatedpeople.html#u=gp">People and Pages sidebar</a>&nbsp;that now appears in search results is particularly galling. It is the ultimate subversion of Google to a commercial end. Basically, it's an enormous ad for Google's other products, hogging your screen.</p>
<p>It's hard to understand how Google could screw up its core product like that. But there's a remarkably simple explanation: Search is no longer Google's core product.</p>
<p>One Googler authorized to speak for the company on background (meaning I could use the information he gave me, but not directly quote or attribute it) told me something that I found shocking. Google isn't primarily about search anymore. Sure, search is still a core product, but it's no longer&nbsp;<em>the</em>&nbsp;core product. The core product, he said, is simply Google.</p>
<p>Ultimately, it's not about <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/gmail">Gmail</a> or Search or <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/android">Android</a> or <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/chrome">Chrome</a> or Maps or Plus. All of those are in service to one great master; pieces of the larger Google. He said that if I paid attention to what Larry Page has been saying recently, this would be apparent. And yup,&nbsp;<a href="http://pandodaily.com/2012/01/24/larry-page-to-googlers-if-you-dont-get-spyw-work-somewhere-else/">PandoDaily recently quoted Page saying</a>, "This is&nbsp;the path we're headed down &ndash; a single unified, &lsquo;beautiful' product&nbsp;across everything. If you don't get that, then you should probably work&nbsp;somewhere else."</p>
<p>It's stunning when you stop and think about it. Search isn't just what Google does best, it's what it&nbsp;<em>is</em>&nbsp;in most people's minds. The company's name is often used as a verb meaning "to search." It's in the Oxford English Dictionary! So what happened?</p>
<h3><span class="modfont"><strong>The Move from Search to Answers</strong></span></h3>
<p>Google owns the Web, but it didn't build it. And as it turns out, the open Web is kind of shitty real estate. Yes, the mansion itself is huge, but it's not built to code and is in constant need of renovation to keep it from falling apart.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, there are all these new homes going up in the same neighborhood. Nice places. Built from the ground up to perfectly fit their owners' needs. Places that people can can get to from the Web, but aren't really made of Web. Those are the kind of joints users want to go hang out in.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1">As Chris Anderson argued in WIRED</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Over the past few years, one of the most important shifts in the digital world has been the move from the wide-open Web to semiclosed platforms that use the Internet for transport but not the browser for display. It's driven primarily by the rise of the <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/iphone">iPhone</a> model of mobile computing, and it's a world Google can't crawl, one where HTML doesn't rule.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Google needs to get inside those houses. Or failing that, build one of its own.</p>
<p>The Internet is the world's greatest collection of knowledge, but increasingly, that wisdom lives in walled off apps. It lives in services and platforms. Places where we build up relationships, express preferences, and reveal so much about ourselves. We're on <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/foursquare">Foursquare</a> and <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/netflix">Netflix</a> and Facebook and Twitter and <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/skype">Skype</a>. We're interacting in real time, and in ways that don't lend themselves well to indexing. Google can't know exactly what's going on in all those places. How the links between entities work. What and who we like and dislike. There is information there that it can't index. And if it can't index it, or understand it, it damn sure can't serve an ad.</p>
<p>Trouble is, that hard-to-index information is key to Google's future. Mountain View may not be all about search anymore, but it desperately wants to be able to answer real world questions for you; there's a huge difference. Search is just about retrieving information. Actually answering subjective questions requires a deep knowledge of the person doing the asking: <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/where">Where</a> you are, who your are friends, what your interests are, what you like and don't like.</p>
<p>Picture this scenario. You are about to leave San Francisco to drive to Lake Tahoe for a weekend of skiing, so you fire up your Android handset and ask it "what's the best restaurant between here and Lake Tahoe?"</p>
<p>It's an incredibly complex and subjective query. But Google wants to be able to answer it anyway. (This was an actual example given to me by Google.) To provide one, it needs to know things about you. A lot of things. A staggering number of things.</p>
<p>To start with, it needs to know where you are. Then there is the question of your route&mdash;are you taking 80 up to the north side of the lake, or will you take 50 and the southern route? It needs to know what you like. So it will look to the restaurants you've frequented in the past and what you've thought of them. It may want to know who is in the car with you&mdash;your vegan roommates?&mdash;and see their dining and review history as well. It would be helpful to see what kind of restaurants you've sought out before. It may look at your Web browsing habits to see what kind of sites you frequent. It wants to know which places your wider circle of friends have recommended. But of course, similar tastes may not mean similar budgets, so it could need to take a look at your spending history. It may look to the types of instructional cooking videos you've viewed or the recipes found in your browsing history.</p>
<p>It wants to look at every possible signal it can find, and deliver a highly relevant answer: You want to eat at Ikeda's in Auburn, California. Hey, I love that place too! Try the apple pie.</p>
<p>There is only one path to that answer, and it goes straight through your privacy. Google can't deliver this kind of a tailored result if you're using all kinds of other services that it doesn't control. Nor can it do it if you keep your Google services separated. You have to do all the things you used to do elsewhere within the confines of one big information sharing service called Google.</p>
<p><em>This&nbsp;<a 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20your%20location,%20your%20friends,%20your%20history,%20your%20desires,%20your%20finances;%20nothing%20short%20of%20your%20essence.%20And%20it%20needs%20to%20combine%20all%20that%20knowledge%20together.%20That's%20Search%20Plus%20Your%20World.%20&quot;Your%20World&quot;%20is%20not%20just%20your%20friends,%20or%20your%20location.%20It's%20your%20everything.%20The%20breadth%20of%20information%20Google%20wants%20to%20collect%20and%20collate%20is%20the%20stuff%20of%20goosebumps.%20%20And%20the%20thing%20is,%20Google's%20going%20to%20get%20it.%20All%20of%20it.%20%20The%20question%20is%20not%20if%20Google%20will%20be%20able%20to%20do%20this.%20Of%20course%20it%20will.%20It%20doesn't%20have%20to%20build%20better%20products,%20it%20just%20has%20to%20force%20enough%20people%20into%20them.%20It%20will%20leverage%20everything%20it%20has&mdash;and%20it%20already%20is&mdash;to%20squeeze%20more%20information%20from%20us.%20The%20question%20is:%20should%20we%20be%20okay%20with%20that?%20%20Perversely,%20some%20of%20the%20things%20Google%20has%20been%20doing%20to%20get%20us%20in%20that%20tent,%20and%20get%20that%20information%20from%20us,%20are%20the%20very%20things%20that%20suggest%20we%20may%20want%20to%20stay%20outside%20and%20keep%20our%20mouths%20shut.%20%20What%20is%20Evil?%20%20The%20only%20reason%20anyone%20uses%20the%20word%20evil%20about%20Google,%20is%20because%20Google%20asked%20us%20to.%20When%20it%20said%20that%20it%20wasn't%20evil,%20it%20immediately%20invited%20an%20argument.%20%20It%20is%20actually%20quite%20difficult%20for%20a%20corporation%20to%20be%20evil%20in%20the%20traditional%20sense%20of%20the%20word.%20There%20are%20outliers%20most%20of%20us%20might%20call%20evil&mdash;Enron%20or%20arms%20merchants&mdash;that%20may%20operate%20outside%20the%20law.%20There%20are%20a%20smaller%20few%20companies%20like%20Monsanto,%20or%20Dow%20Chemical%20or%20Goldman%20Sachs%20that%20have%20done%20crucial%20damage%20to%20our%20planet%20or%20society.%20But%20it%20starts%20to%20get%20subjective%20pretty%20quickly.%20You%20might%20think%20a%20company%20with%20abhorrent%20labor%20practices%20is%20evil.%20Or%20one%20that%20is%20a%20large%20polluter.%20Or%20logs%20old-growth%20forests.%20Or%20provides%20abortions.%20Or%20doesn't%20provide%20abortions.%20%20Evil%20is%20different%20things%20to%20different%20people.%20%20Which%20is%20why%20it%20is%20ultimately%20not%20a%20very%20useful%20way%20of%20thinking%20about%20things.%20Evil%20means%20different%20things%20to%20different%20people.%20Evil%20is%20subjective.%20So%20perhaps%20what%20we%20should%20focus%20on%20instead%20of%20what%20we%20mean%20by%20evil,%20is%20what%20did%20Google%20mean%20by%20&quot;evil?&quot;%20%20Fortunately,%20this%20is%20on%20the%20record;%20they%20said%20it,%20and%20we%20wrote%20it%20down.%20%20Josh%20McHugh's%20January%202003%20story%20about%20Google%20could%20have%20been%20written%20today.%20It%20identifies%20all%20the%20major%20problems%20Google%20faced%20then,%20which%20are%20still,%20largely,%20the%20problems%20it%20faces%20today.%20But%20it%20does%20something%20else,%20too.%20It%20pins%20the%20company%20down%20on%20what,%20exactly,%20evil%20is.%20%20Google's%20code%20of%20conduct%20can%20be%20boiled%20down%20to%20a%20mere%20three%20words:%20Don't%20be%20evil.%20Very%20Star%20Wars.%20But%20what%20does%20it%20mean?%20&quot;Evil,&quot;%20says%20Google%20CEO%20Eric%20Schmidt,%20&quot;is%20what%20Sergey%20says%20is%20evil.&quot;%20As%20a%20private%20company,%20Google%20has%20one%20master:%20users.%20As%20a%20public%20company,%20there%20are%20shareholders%20to%20worry%20about.%20And%20more%20than%20happy%20users,%20shareholders%20want%20ever-greater%20profits.%20%20If%20Brin's%20code%20of%20good%20and%20evil%20permits%20the%20company%20to%20negotiate%20with%20sovereign%20governments%20and%20allows%20for%20some%20legal%20meddling%20from%20unpopular%20religions,%20there%20is%20no%20wiggle%20room&mdash;no%20gray%20area%20whatsoever&mdash;when%20it%20comes%20to%20those%20who%20attempt%20to%20subvert%20the%20power%20of%20Google%20to%20their%20own%20commercial%20ends.%20One%20thing%20Brin%20is%20sure%20of:%20On%20the%20side%20of%20evil%20lies%20trickery.%20%20I%20ask%20Brin%20to%20imagine,%20for%20a%20moment,%20running%20his%20company's%20evil%20twin,%20a%20sort%20of%20anti-Google.%20&quot;We%20would%20be%20doing%20things%20like%20having%20advertising%20that%20wasn't%20marked%20as%20being%20paid%20for.%20Stuff%20that%20violates%20the%20trust%20of%20the%20users,&quot;%20he%20says,%20describing%20a%20site%20that%20sounds%20not%20unlike%20the%20pay-for-placement%20search%20site%20Overture.%20&quot;Say%20someone%20came%20looking%20for%20breast%20cancer%20information%20and%20didn't%20know%20that%20some%20listings%20were%20paid%20for%20with%20money%20from%20drug%20companies.%20We'd%20be%20endangering%20people's%20health.&quot;%20%20I've%20taken%20those%20passages%20from%20several%20different%20places%20in%20the%20story%20and%20the%20emphasis%20is%20mine.%20But%20the%20points%20are%20quite%20clear.%20In%20the%20past%20year&mdash;and%20especially%20the%20past%20six%20months&mdash;Google%20has%20unquestionably%20and%20to%20an%20unprecedented%20extent%20violated%20its%20users'%20trust.%20And%20of%20course%20the%20great%20irony%20is%20that%20the%20subversion%20of%20Google's%20power,%20the%20ultimate%20trickery,%20came%20not%20from%20an%20external%20force,%20but%20Google%20itself.%20Google%20has%20spent%20much%20of%202011%20and%202012%20getting%20called%20out%20for%20all%20kinds%20of%20nasty%20brutish%20behavior.%20Here%20are%20a%20few%20small%20but%20telling%20examples%20of%20that%20trickery:%20%20Google%20subverted%20mobile%20Safari's%20default%20protections%20to%20track%20users%20in%20ways%20they%20did%20not%20agree%20to%20be%20tracked.%20And%20lied%20about%20it,%20as%20the%20Wall%20Street%20Journal%20reported:%20&quot;The%20findings%20appeared%20to%20contradict%20some%20of%20Google's%20own%20instructions%20to%20Safari%20users%20on%20how%20to%20avoid%20tracking.&quot;%20Google%20began%20promoting%20its%20own%20products%20in%20search%20over%20more%20obviously%20relevant%20ones.%20It%20placed%20Google+%20profiles%20above%20those%20that%20are%20obviously%20more%20relevant%20on%20other%20social%20networks.%20Its%20Places%20frequently%20appear%20above%20the%20actual%20location%20listings.%20Google%20has%20increasingly%20given%20prominence%20to%20ads%20over%20results.%20If%20you%20use%20an%2011&quot;%20Macbook%20Air,%20for%20example,%20and%20search%20for%20a%20generalized%20term%20like%20&quot;music&quot;%20your%20small%20screen%20will%20be%20full%20of%20ads&mdash;you%20will%20have%20to%20scroll%20to%20find%20search%20results.%20Google%20falsely%20claimed%20it%20couldn't%20effectively%20index%20and%20rank%20Twitter.%20Google%20illegally%20accepted%20ads%20for%20Canadian%20pharmacies%20with%20the%20purpose%20of%20delivering%20them%20to%20American%20users.%20Google%20seems%20to%20have%20committed%20overt%20fraud%20in%20Kenya.%20So%20yes,%20evil%20is%20different%20things%20to%20different%20people.%20But%20if%20we%20use%20Google's%20definition%20of%20evil,%20if%20we%20believe%20evil%20to%20be%20subverting%20the%20power%20of%20Google's%20information%20delivery%20system%20to%20a%20commercial%20end,%20tricking%20users%20and%20violating%20their%20trust,%20well...%20%20While%20this%20is%20a%20problem%20today,%20it%20will%20be%20an%20even%20bigger%20one%20tomorrow.%20%20What%20Now?%20Your%20Data.%20Your%20Privacy.%20Your%20Choices.%20Your%20Future.%20%20Google%20has,%20for%20many%20years,%20essentially%20said%20&quot;trust%20us.&quot;%20It's%20in%20its%20Founder's%20Letters,%20its%20mission%20statements,%20even%20on%20its%20about%20page.%20Google%20has%20pledged%20both%20overtly%20and%20in%20suggestive%20ways%20to%20not%20be%20evil%20by%20making%20a%20great%20product%20and%20putting%20users%20first.%20%20You%20could%20argue%20that%20it%20still%20does%20both%20of%20those%20things.%20That%20its%20attempts%20to%20move%20beyond%20Search%20are%20just%20attempts%20to%20provide%20a%20better%20product.%20You%20could%20see%20these%20actions%20as%20taking%20a%20long%20term%20view.%20You%20could%20point%20to%20Google's%20Data%20Liberation%20policy&mdash;which%20is%20a%20fine%20policy&mdash;that%20lets%20you%20take%20all%20of%20your%20data%20with%20you%20if%20you%20decide%20to%20leave%20Google.%20%20And%20that%20is,%20in%20its%20own%20weird%20engineer-centric%20way,%20a%20user%20friendly%20thing%20to%20do.%20This%20is%20certainly%20the%20case%20right%20now,%20but%20if%20Google%20is%20OK%20with%20changing%20its%20course%20on%20one%20of%20its%20core%20values,%20how%20long%20will%20these%20policies%20and%20directions%20last?%20%20What%20happens%20if,%20ten%20years%20from%20now,%20Google%20drastically%20changes%20again?%20Will%20you%20still%20be%20able%20to%20wipe%20yourself%20from%20Google's%20drives?%20Will%20there%20be%20a%20massive,%20or%20incremental%20policy%20shift?%20Will%20it%20secretly%20keep%20bits%20of%20you,%20just%20as%20it%20has%20secretly%20tracked%20bits%20of%20you,%20against%20your%20wishes?%20If%20Google%20is%20already%20going%20back%20on%20some%20of%20its%20initial%20promises,%20what%20comes%20next?%20If%20it%20can%20break%20one,%20can't%20it%20break%20them%20all?%20%20What%20Google%20seems%20to%20have%20forgotten%20is%20that%20we%20were%20only%20willing%20to%20give%20them%20all%20that%20data%20in%20the%20first%20place%20because%20it%20gave%20us%20great%20products%20and%20seemed%20trustworthy.%20%20Google%20has%20forgotten%20why%20we%20loved%20it.%20It%20has%20degraded%20its%20premier%20product%20in%20service%20of%20promoting%20others.%20It%20has%20done%20devious%20things%20to%20ferret%20out%20information%20from%20its%20users%20that%20they%20do%20not%20willingly%20provide.%20It%20is%20too%20much%20focused%20on%20the%20future,%20and%20conversely%20too%20scared%20of%20current%20competition.%20%20Many%20years%20ago,%20when%20Google%20was%20embroiled%20in%20its%20first%20major%20privacy%20scandal&mdash;over%20the%20outcry%20that%20its%20robots%20would%20read%20the%20content%20of%20user%20emails%20in%20its%20then%20nascent%20and%20publicly%20unavailable%20Gmail%20service&mdash;I%20argued%20that%20this%20was%20no%20big%20deal.%20That%20scanning%20for%20content%20did%20not%20equal%20reading.%20That%20we%20shouldn't%20be%20scared%20of%20Google.%20I%20trusted%20Google.%20A%20few%20years%20later,%20I%20was%20told%20by%20an%20executive%20at%20the%20company%20that%20this%20story%20was%20seen%20as%20a%20turning%20point%20in%20the%20debate.%20%20Google%20is%20far%20bigger%20now,%20and%20far%20less%20susceptible%20to%20the%20whims%20of%20the%20public.%20But%20I%20hope%20that,%20to%20some%20extent,%20it%20is%20still%20listening.%20Because%20the%20case%20against%20Google%20is%20for%20the%20first%20time%20starting%20to%20outweigh%20the%20case%20for%20it.%20%20Google%20may%20have%20to%20get%20us%20to%20use%20Google+%20if%20it%20wants%20to%20remain%20relevant.%20But%20it%20should%20be%20able%20to%20go%20about%20that%20in%20a%20fundamentally%20honest%20fashion.%20%20If%20it%20can't%20keep%20its%20promises,%20if%20it%20can't%20avoid%20resorting%20to%20trickery,%20if%20it%20can't%20keep%20itself%20from%20subverting%20the%20power%20of%20its%20search%20engine%20for%20commercial%20ends,%20and%20on%20top%20of%20all%20that%20if%20it%20can't%20even%20deliver%20the%20highest%20quality%20search%20results%20at%20a%20default%20setting&mdash;the%20most%20basic%20thing%20people%20have%20come%20to%20expect%20from%20Google,%20the%20very%20thing%20its%20name%20has%20become%20synonymous%20with&mdash;why%20should%20you%20trust%20it%20with%20your%20personal%20data?%20%20That's%20a%20question%20that%20we'll%20all%20have%20to%20answer%20for%20ourselves." target="_blank">post</a>&nbsp;originally appeared at&nbsp;<a href="http://gizmodo.com/">Gizmodo</a>.</em></p>
<h3><span class="modfont"><strong>The Way Out</strong></span></h3>
<p>Google mastered search by looking at our values. In addition to just looking at the content on the page itself, Google looked at other pages that linked to it&mdash;backlinks. They were, essentially, objective verification of the page's importance. It used those backlinks and its proprietary algorithm to create a PageRank with the most relevant examples placed highest in the results. You no longer had to sift through pages and pages of results to find what you were looking for. It was wonderful. It was relevant.</p>
<p>But while Google was busy holding up the sky, the ground beneath its feet shifted in ways it didn't anticipate. Our searches have evolved from the merely factual to the deeply personal. We want to find a nice hotel or a good restaurant or a particular person. We want to know what's happening right now, right here. And increasingly, we turned to smaller, fragmented, platforms to get that stuff.</p>
<p>Facebook did for people searching what Google did for Web searching, in a very similar way. While Google used existing links between Web pages to determine relevance, Facebook used the existing links between people&mdash;the connections that we ourselves defined&mdash;to determine social relevance.</p>
<p>It explains why Facebook works so well right from the gate. Log onto Facebook for the first time, give it some social data&mdash;like your contacts database, your workplace, your high school, your university&mdash;and it begins finding people you know as if by magic.</p>
<p>Google was never very good at that. It doesn't know who we know. Let's say I'm looking to connect with Joe Brown: If I enter his name into Google, I'll get thousands of results for various Joes all over the world&mdash;judges, punk rockers, comedians. But on Facebook, when I enter his name, I find exactly who I want because he's connected to so many of my other friends already.</p>
<p>The backlinks my friends have already established give Facebook a social relevance Google doesn't have. And because Facebook hides the connections in its social graph, Google can't index that data. It can't understand it. In other words, Google can't even use what Facebook knows about me to know which Joe Brown I am looking for. (You know,&nbsp;<a href="http://gizmodo.com/people/JMFB">this guy</a>.)</p>
<p>And as we have begun to carry the Internet with us everywhere we go&mdash;posting photos and status updates and blog posts and videos along the way&mdash;we've increasingly wanted a different type of relevance, one that speaks more to what's relevant right now than overall and forever. We want up to the millisecond data. The kind of thing found on, say, Twitter.</p>
<p>Twitter is often mislabeled as a social network when it's actually more of a real-time information network. Yes, people make connections, but they tend to connect based on shared interests and location above existing friendships. You don't follow your friends from high school, or others with whom you have nothing in common; You follow people who have something to say. And-more importantly for Google-Twitter is the most expansive, real-time, searchable window to the world today.</p>
<p>Twitter and Facebook both have things Google needs if it wants to move into the post-web world. Facebook has social relevance. Twitter has real-time information. But Facebook and Google view themselves as competitors. And while Google and Twitter once had an arrangement, that deal fell through, for reasons neither party will fully disclose.</p>
<p>People often say Google's previous CEO, Larry Page, missed the boat on social. But in reality, where he missed the boat was by not inking a deal that could get Google what it needed to deliver answers in a post-PC, post-Web world. Which brings us to Google+.</p>
<p>Google+ solves Google's big problems, at least in theory. It delivers a social network&mdash;arguably better constructed Facebook&mdash;that lets it understand the connections between people. It also lets Google tap into a stream of real-time data, and build a search system around that without having to worry that it will ever be left at the altar. And it does so much more, too! It has real time photos, like Instagram. It has a video chat service, like Skype. It lets you see which businesses your friends recommend, like Yelp. It's a one size fits all solution, and what's more it's on the open Web. Perfect!</p>
<p>One problem: People don't really want to use it. They're already entrenched in other stuff. Many of Google's recent actions can be explained by understanding that dilemma. Google wants to know things about you that you aren't already telling it so you will continue asking it questions and it can continue serving ads against the questions you ask it. So, it feels like it has to herd people into using Google+ whether they want to go there or not.</p>
<p>This explains why Google has been driving privacy advocates crazy and polluting its search results. It explains why now, on the Google homepage, there's a big ugly black bar across the top that reminds you of all its properties. It explains the glaring red box with the meaningless numbers that so desperately begs you to come see what's happening in its anti-social network. It explains why Google is being a bully. It explains why Google broke search: Because to remain relevant it has to give real-world answers.</p>
<p>Google has to get you under its tent, and break down all the silos between its individual products once you're there. It needs you to reveal your location, your friends, your history, your desires, your finances; nothing short of your essence. And it needs to combine all that knowledge together.&nbsp;<em>That's</em>&nbsp;Search Plus Your World. "Your World" is not just your friends, or your location. It's your everything. The breadth of information Google wants to collect and collate is the stuff of goosebumps.</p>
<p>And the thing is, Google's going to get it. All of it.</p>
<p>The question is not&nbsp;<em>if</em>&nbsp;Google will be able to do this. Of course it will. It doesn't have to build better products, it just has to force enough people into them. It will leverage everything it has&mdash;and it already is&mdash;to squeeze more information from us. The question is:&nbsp;<em>should we be okay with that?</em></p>
<p>Perversely, some of the things Google has been doing to get us in that tent, and get that information from us, are the very things that suggest we may want to stay outside and keep our mouths shut.</p>
<h3><span class="modfont"><strong>What is Evil?</strong></span></h3>
<p>The only reason anyone uses the word evil about Google, is because Google asked us to. When it said that it wasn't evil, it immediately invited an argument.</p>
<p>It is actually quite difficult for a corporation to be evil in the traditional sense of the word. There are outliers most of us might call evil&mdash;Enron or arms merchants&mdash;that may operate outside the law. There are a smaller few companies like Monsanto, or <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/dow-chemical">Dow Chemical</a> or <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/goldman-sachs">Goldman Sachs</a> that have done crucial damage to our planet or society. But it starts to get subjective pretty quickly. You might think a company with abhorrent labor practices is evil. Or one that is a large polluter. Or logs old-growth forests. Or provides abortions. Or doesn't provide abortions.</p>
<p>Evil is different things to different people.</p>
<p>Which is why it is ultimately not a very useful way of thinking about things. Evil means different things to different people. Evil is subjective. So perhaps what we should focus on instead of what we mean by evil, is what did&nbsp;<em>Google</em>&nbsp;mean by "evil?"</p>
<p>Fortunately, this is on the record; they said it, and we wrote it down.</p>
<p>Josh McHugh's&nbsp;<a href="http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.01/google_pr.html">January 2003 story about Google</a>&nbsp;could have been written today. It identifies all the major problems Google faced then, which are still, largely, the problems it faces today. But it does something else, too. It pins the company down on what, exactly, evil is.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Google's code of conduct can be boiled down to a mere three words: Don't be evil.<br />Very Star Wars. But what does it mean?<br />"Evil," says Google CEO Eric Schmidt, "is what Sergey says is evil."<br />As a private company, Google has one master: users. As a public company, there are shareholders to worry about. And more than happy users, shareholders want ever-greater profits.</p>
<p>If Brin's code of good and evil permits the company to negotiate with sovereign governments and allows for some legal meddling from unpopular religions, there is no wiggle room&mdash;no gray area whatsoever&mdash;<strong>when it comes to those who attempt to subvert the power of Google to their own commercial ends. One thing Brin is sure of: On the side of evil lies trickery.</strong></p>
<p>I ask Brin to imagine, for a moment, running his company's evil twin, a sort of anti-Google. "<strong>We would be doing things like having advertising that wasn't marked as being paid for. Stuff that violates the trust of the users</strong>," he says, describing a site that sounds not unlike the pay-for-placement search site Overture. "Say someone came looking for breast cancer information and didn't know that some listings were paid for with money from drug companies. We'd be endangering people's health."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I've taken those passages from several different places in the story and the emphasis is mine. But the points are quite clear. In the past year&mdash;and especially the past six months&mdash;Google has unquestionably and to an unprecedented extent violated its users' trust. And of course the great irony is that the subversion of Google's power, the ultimate trickery, came not from an external force, but Google itself. Google has spent much of 2011 and 2012 getting called out for all kinds of nasty brutish behavior. Here are a few small but telling examples of that trickery:</p>
<ul>
<li>Google subverted mobile Safari's default protections to track users in ways they did not agree to be tracked. And lied about it,&nbsp;<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204880404577225380456599176.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories">as the Wall Street Journal reported</a>: "The findings appeared to contradict some of Google's own instructions to Safari users on how to avoid tracking."</li>
<li>Google&nbsp;<a href="http://searchengineland.com/dont-be-evil-tool-google-108971">began promoting its own products in search over more obviously relevant ones</a>. It placed Google+ profiles above those that are obviously more relevant on other social networks. Its Places frequently appear above the actual location listings.</li>
<li>Google has increasingly given prominence to ads over results. If you use an 11" <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/macbook-air">Macbook Air</a>, for example, and search for a generalized term like "music" your small screen will be full of ads&mdash;you will have to scroll to find search results.</li>
<li>Google&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/#!/twittercomms/status/161578517698580481">falsely claimed it couldn't effectively index and rank Twitter</a>.</li>
<li>Google&nbsp;<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904787404576528332418595052.html">illegally accepted ads for Canadian pharmacies with the purpose of delivering them to American users</a>.</li>
<li><a href="http://boingboing.net/2012/01/13/google-fraudulently-solicits-f.html">Google seems to have committed overt fraud in Kenya</a>.</li>
<li>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>So yes, evil is different things to different people. But if we use Google's definition of evil, if we believe evil to be subverting the power of Google's information delivery system to a commercial end, tricking users and violating their trust, well...</p>
<p>While this is a problem today, it will be an even bigger one tomorrow.</p>
<h3><span class="modfont"><strong>What Now? Your Data. Your Privacy. Your Choices. Your Future.</strong></span></h3>
<p>Google has, for many years, essentially said "trust us." It's in its Founder's Letters, its mission statements, even on its&nbsp;<a href="http://www.google.com/about/">about page</a>. Google has pledged both overtly and in suggestive ways to not be evil by making a great product and putting users first.</p>
<p>You could argue that it still does both of those things. That its attempts to move beyond Search are just attempts to provide a better product. You could see these actions as taking a long term view. You could point to Google's Data Liberation policy&mdash;which is a fine policy&mdash;that lets you take all of your data with you if you decide to leave Google. &nbsp;And that is, in its own weird engineer-centric way, a user friendly thing to do. This is certainly the case right now, but if Google is OK with changing its course on one of its core values, how long will these policies and directions last?</p>
<p>What happens if, ten years from now, Google drastically changes again? Will you still be able to wipe yourself from Google's drives? Will there be a massive, or incremental policy shift? Will it secretly keep bits of you, just as it has secretly tracked bits of you, against your wishes? If Google is already going back on some of its initial promises, what comes next? If it can break one, can't it break them all?</p>
<p>What Google seems to have forgotten is that we were only willing to give them all that data in the first place because it gave us great products and seemed trustworthy.</p>
<p>Google has forgotten why we loved it. It has degraded its premier product in service of promoting others. It has done devious things to ferret out information from its users that they do not willingly provide. It is too much focused on the future, and conversely too scared of current competition.</p>
<p>Many years ago, when Google was embroiled in its first major privacy scandal&mdash;over the outcry that its robots would read the content of user emails in its then nascent and publicly unavailable Gmail service&mdash;<a href="http://www.salon.com/2004/04/26/gmail_2/">I argued that this was no big deal</a>. That scanning for content did not equal reading. That we shouldn't be scared of Google. I trusted Google. A few years later, I was told by an executive at the company that this story was seen as a turning point in the debate.</p>
<p>Google is far bigger now, and far less susceptible to the whims of the public. But I hope that, to some extent, it is still listening. Because the case against Google is for the first time starting to outweigh the case for it.</p>
<p>Google may have to get us to use Google+ if it wants to remain relevant. But it should be able to go about that in a fundamentally honest fashion.</p>
<p>If it can't keep its promises, if it can't avoid resorting to trickery, if it can't keep itself from subverting the power of its search engine for commercial ends, and on top of all that if it&nbsp;<em>can't even deliver the highest quality search results at a default setting</em>&mdash;the most basic thing people have come to expect from Google, the very thing its name has become synonymous with&mdash;why should you trust it with your personal data?</p>
<p>That's a question that we'll all have to answer for ourselves.</p>
<p><em>This <a 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20your%20location,%20your%20friends,%20your%20history,%20your%20desires,%20your%20finances;%20nothing%20short%20of%20your%20essence.%20And%20it%20needs%20to%20combine%20all%20that%20knowledge%20together.%20That's%20Search%20Plus%20Your%20World.%20&quot;Your%20World&quot;%20is%20not%20just%20your%20friends,%20or%20your%20location.%20It's%20your%20everything.%20The%20breadth%20of%20information%20Google%20wants%20to%20collect%20and%20collate%20is%20the%20stuff%20of%20goosebumps.%20%20And%20the%20thing%20is,%20Google's%20going%20to%20get%20it.%20All%20of%20it.%20%20The%20question%20is%20not%20if%20Google%20will%20be%20able%20to%20do%20this.%20Of%20course%20it%20will.%20It%20doesn't%20have%20to%20build%20better%20products,%20it%20just%20has%20to%20force%20enough%20people%20into%20them.%20It%20will%20leverage%20everything%20it%20has&mdash;and%20it%20already%20is&mdash;to%20squeeze%20more%20information%20from%20us.%20The%20question%20is:%20should%20we%20be%20okay%20with%20that?%20%20Perversely,%20some%20of%20the%20things%20Google%20has%20been%20doing%20to%20get%20us%20in%20that%20tent,%20and%20get%20that%20information%20from%20us,%20are%20the%20very%20things%20that%20suggest%20we%20may%20want%20to%20stay%20outside%20and%20keep%20our%20mouths%20shut.%20%20What%20is%20Evil?%20%20The%20only%20reason%20anyone%20uses%20the%20word%20evil%20about%20Google,%20is%20because%20Google%20asked%20us%20to.%20When%20it%20said%20that%20it%20wasn't%20evil,%20it%20immediately%20invited%20an%20argument.%20%20It%20is%20actually%20quite%20difficult%20for%20a%20corporation%20to%20be%20evil%20in%20the%20traditional%20sense%20of%20the%20word.%20There%20are%20outliers%20most%20of%20us%20might%20call%20evil&mdash;Enron%20or%20arms%20merchants&mdash;that%20may%20operate%20outside%20the%20law.%20There%20are%20a%20smaller%20few%20companies%20like%20Monsanto,%20or%20Dow%20Chemical%20or%20Goldman%20Sachs%20that%20have%20done%20crucial%20damage%20to%20our%20planet%20or%20society.%20But%20it%20starts%20to%20get%20subjective%20pretty%20quickly.%20You%20might%20think%20a%20company%20with%20abhorrent%20labor%20practices%20is%20evil.%20Or%20one%20that%20is%20a%20large%20polluter.%20Or%20logs%20old-growth%20forests.%20Or%20provides%20abortions.%20Or%20doesn't%20provide%20abortions.%20%20Evil%20is%20different%20things%20to%20different%20people.%20%20Which%20is%20why%20it%20is%20ultimately%20not%20a%20very%20useful%20way%20of%20thinking%20about%20things.%20Evil%20means%20different%20things%20to%20different%20people.%20Evil%20is%20subjective.%20So%20perhaps%20what%20we%20should%20focus%20on%20instead%20of%20what%20we%20mean%20by%20evil,%20is%20what%20did%20Google%20mean%20by%20&quot;evil?&quot;%20%20Fortunately,%20this%20is%20on%20the%20record;%20they%20said%20it,%20and%20we%20wrote%20it%20down.%20%20Josh%20McHugh's%20January%202003%20story%20about%20Google%20could%20have%20been%20written%20today.%20It%20identifies%20all%20the%20major%20problems%20Google%20faced%20then,%20which%20are%20still,%20largely,%20the%20problems%20it%20faces%20today.%20But%20it%20does%20something%20else,%20too.%20It%20pins%20the%20company%20down%20on%20what,%20exactly,%20evil%20is.%20%20Google's%20code%20of%20conduct%20can%20be%20boiled%20down%20to%20a%20mere%20three%20words:%20Don't%20be%20evil.%20Very%20Star%20Wars.%20But%20what%20does%20it%20mean?%20&quot;Evil,&quot;%20says%20Google%20CEO%20Eric%20Schmidt,%20&quot;is%20what%20Sergey%20says%20is%20evil.&quot;%20As%20a%20private%20company,%20Google%20has%20one%20master:%20users.%20As%20a%20public%20company,%20there%20are%20shareholders%20to%20worry%20about.%20And%20more%20than%20happy%20users,%20shareholders%20want%20ever-greater%20profits.%20%20If%20Brin's%20code%20of%20good%20and%20evil%20permits%20the%20company%20to%20negotiate%20with%20sovereign%20governments%20and%20allows%20for%20some%20legal%20meddling%20from%20unpopular%20religions,%20there%20is%20no%20wiggle%20room&mdash;no%20gray%20area%20whatsoever&mdash;when%20it%20comes%20to%20those%20who%20attempt%20to%20subvert%20the%20power%20of%20Google%20to%20their%20own%20commercial%20ends.%20One%20thing%20Brin%20is%20sure%20of:%20On%20the%20side%20of%20evil%20lies%20trickery.%20%20I%20ask%20Brin%20to%20imagine,%20for%20a%20moment,%20running%20his%20company's%20evil%20twin,%20a%20sort%20of%20anti-Google.%20&quot;We%20would%20be%20doing%20things%20like%20having%20advertising%20that%20wasn't%20marked%20as%20being%20paid%20for.%20Stuff%20that%20violates%20the%20trust%20of%20the%20users,&quot;%20he%20says,%20describing%20a%20site%20that%20sounds%20not%20unlike%20the%20pay-for-placement%20search%20site%20Overture.%20&quot;Say%20someone%20came%20looking%20for%20breast%20cancer%20information%20and%20didn't%20know%20that%20some%20listings%20were%20paid%20for%20with%20money%20from%20drug%20companies.%20We'd%20be%20endangering%20people's%20health.&quot;%20%20I've%20taken%20those%20passages%20from%20several%20different%20places%20in%20the%20story%20and%20the%20emphasis%20is%20mine.%20But%20the%20points%20are%20quite%20clear.%20In%20the%20past%20year&mdash;and%20especially%20the%20past%20six%20months&mdash;Google%20has%20unquestionably%20and%20to%20an%20unprecedented%20extent%20violated%20its%20users'%20trust.%20And%20of%20course%20the%20great%20irony%20is%20that%20the%20subversion%20of%20Google's%20power,%20the%20ultimate%20trickery,%20came%20not%20from%20an%20external%20force,%20but%20Google%20itself.%20Google%20has%20spent%20much%20of%202011%20and%202012%20getting%20called%20out%20for%20all%20kinds%20of%20nasty%20brutish%20behavior.%20Here%20are%20a%20few%20small%20but%20telling%20examples%20of%20that%20trickery:%20%20Google%20subverted%20mobile%20Safari's%20default%20protections%20to%20track%20users%20in%20ways%20they%20did%20not%20agree%20to%20be%20tracked.%20And%20lied%20about%20it,%20as%20the%20Wall%20Street%20Journal%20reported:%20&quot;The%20findings%20appeared%20to%20contradict%20some%20of%20Google's%20own%20instructions%20to%20Safari%20users%20on%20how%20to%20avoid%20tracking.&quot;%20Google%20began%20promoting%20its%20own%20products%20in%20search%20over%20more%20obviously%20relevant%20ones.%20It%20placed%20Google+%20profiles%20above%20those%20that%20are%20obviously%20more%20relevant%20on%20other%20social%20networks.%20Its%20Places%20frequently%20appear%20above%20the%20actual%20location%20listings.%20Google%20has%20increasingly%20given%20prominence%20to%20ads%20over%20results.%20If%20you%20use%20an%2011&quot;%20Macbook%20Air,%20for%20example,%20and%20search%20for%20a%20generalized%20term%20like%20&quot;music&quot;%20your%20small%20screen%20will%20be%20full%20of%20ads&mdash;you%20will%20have%20to%20scroll%20to%20find%20search%20results.%20Google%20falsely%20claimed%20it%20couldn't%20effectively%20index%20and%20rank%20Twitter.%20Google%20illegally%20accepted%20ads%20for%20Canadian%20pharmacies%20with%20the%20purpose%20of%20delivering%20them%20to%20American%20users.%20Google%20seems%20to%20have%20committed%20overt%20fraud%20in%20Kenya.%20So%20yes,%20evil%20is%20different%20things%20to%20different%20people.%20But%20if%20we%20use%20Google's%20definition%20of%20evil,%20if%20we%20believe%20evil%20to%20be%20subverting%20the%20power%20of%20Google's%20information%20delivery%20system%20to%20a%20commercial%20end,%20tricking%20users%20and%20violating%20their%20trust,%20well...%20%20While%20this%20is%20a%20problem%20today,%20it%20will%20be%20an%20even%20bigger%20one%20tomorrow.%20%20What%20Now?%20Your%20Data.%20Your%20Privacy.%20Your%20Choices.%20Your%20Future.%20%20Google%20has,%20for%20many%20years,%20essentially%20said%20&quot;trust%20us.&quot;%20It's%20in%20its%20Founder's%20Letters,%20its%20mission%20statements,%20even%20on%20its%20about%20page.%20Google%20has%20pledged%20both%20overtly%20and%20in%20suggestive%20ways%20to%20not%20be%20evil%20by%20making%20a%20great%20product%20and%20putting%20users%20first.%20%20You%20could%20argue%20that%20it%20still%20does%20both%20of%20those%20things.%20That%20its%20attempts%20to%20move%20beyond%20Search%20are%20just%20attempts%20to%20provide%20a%20better%20product.%20You%20could%20see%20these%20actions%20as%20taking%20a%20long%20term%20view.%20You%20could%20point%20to%20Google's%20Data%20Liberation%20policy&mdash;which%20is%20a%20fine%20policy&mdash;that%20lets%20you%20take%20all%20of%20your%20data%20with%20you%20if%20you%20decide%20to%20leave%20Google.%20%20And%20that%20is,%20in%20its%20own%20weird%20engineer-centric%20way,%20a%20user%20friendly%20thing%20to%20do.%20This%20is%20certainly%20the%20case%20right%20now,%20but%20if%20Google%20is%20OK%20with%20changing%20its%20course%20on%20one%20of%20its%20core%20values,%20how%20long%20will%20these%20policies%20and%20directions%20last?%20%20What%20happens%20if,%20ten%20years%20from%20now,%20Google%20drastically%20changes%20again?%20Will%20you%20still%20be%20able%20to%20wipe%20yourself%20from%20Google's%20drives?%20Will%20there%20be%20a%20massive,%20or%20incremental%20policy%20shift?%20Will%20it%20secretly%20keep%20bits%20of%20you,%20just%20as%20it%20has%20secretly%20tracked%20bits%20of%20you,%20against%20your%20wishes?%20If%20Google%20is%20already%20going%20back%20on%20some%20of%20its%20initial%20promises,%20what%20comes%20next?%20If%20it%20can%20break%20one,%20can't%20it%20break%20them%20all?%20%20What%20Google%20seems%20to%20have%20forgotten%20is%20that%20we%20were%20only%20willing%20to%20give%20them%20all%20that%20data%20in%20the%20first%20place%20because%20it%20gave%20us%20great%20products%20and%20seemed%20trustworthy.%20%20Google%20has%20forgotten%20why%20we%20loved%20it.%20It%20has%20degraded%20its%20premier%20product%20in%20service%20of%20promoting%20others.%20It%20has%20done%20devious%20things%20to%20ferret%20out%20information%20from%20its%20users%20that%20they%20do%20not%20willingly%20provide.%20It%20is%20too%20much%20focused%20on%20the%20future,%20and%20conversely%20too%20scared%20of%20current%20competition.%20%20Many%20years%20ago,%20when%20Google%20was%20embroiled%20in%20its%20first%20major%20privacy%20scandal&mdash;over%20the%20outcry%20that%20its%20robots%20would%20read%20the%20content%20of%20user%20emails%20in%20its%20then%20nascent%20and%20publicly%20unavailable%20Gmail%20service&mdash;I%20argued%20that%20this%20was%20no%20big%20deal.%20That%20scanning%20for%20content%20did%20not%20equal%20reading.%20That%20we%20shouldn't%20be%20scared%20of%20Google.%20I%20trusted%20Google.%20A%20few%20years%20later,%20I%20was%20told%20by%20an%20executive%20at%20the%20company%20that%20this%20story%20was%20seen%20as%20a%20turning%20point%20in%20the%20debate.%20%20Google%20is%20far%20bigger%20now,%20and%20far%20less%20susceptible%20to%20the%20whims%20of%20the%20public.%20But%20I%20hope%20that,%20to%20some%20extent,%20it%20is%20still%20listening.%20Because%20the%20case%20against%20Google%20is%20for%20the%20first%20time%20starting%20to%20outweigh%20the%20case%20for%20it.%20%20Google%20may%20have%20to%20get%20us%20to%20use%20Google+%20if%20it%20wants%20to%20remain%20relevant.%20But%20it%20should%20be%20able%20to%20go%20about%20that%20in%20a%20fundamentally%20honest%20fashion.%20%20If%20it%20can't%20keep%20its%20promises,%20if%20it%20can't%20avoid%20resorting%20to%20trickery,%20if%20it%20can't%20keep%20itself%20from%20subverting%20the%20power%20of%20its%20search%20engine%20for%20commercial%20ends,%20and%20on%20top%20of%20all%20that%20if%20it%20can't%20even%20deliver%20the%20highest%20quality%20search%20results%20at%20a%20default%20setting&mdash;the%20most%20basic%20thing%20people%20have%20come%20to%20expect%20from%20Google,%20the%20very%20thing%20its%20name%20has%20become%20synonymous%20with&mdash;why%20should%20you%20trust%20it%20with%20your%20personal%20data?%20%20That's%20a%20question%20that%20we'll%20all%20have%20to%20answer%20for%20ourselves." target="_blank">post</a> originally appeared at <a href="http://gizmodo.com/">Gizmodo</a>.</em></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-case-against-google-2012-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/if-dc-gets-nuked-2012-3Here's What Happens If Someone Decides To Nuke DChttp://www.businessinsider.com/if-dc-gets-nuked-2012-3
Sat, 17 Mar 2012 11:44:00 -0400Sam Biddle
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/4f64b0d4eab8ea3334000018/map-of-dc-after-nuclear-attack.png" border="0" alt="map of DC after nuclear attack" /></p><p>Late last year, the government conducted a study to discern what happens if D.C. is hit with a 10-kiloton nuke.&nbsp;<em>Would it be good, or would it be bad?</em>&nbsp;The&nbsp;<a href="http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2012/03/ncr_nuclear.html">results</a>&nbsp;are in, and surprise! It would be very, very bad.</p>
<p>The study&mdash;"National Capital Region: Key Response Planning Factors for the Aftermath of Nuclear Terrorism"&mdash;simulates and prognosticates a nuclear strike at&nbsp;<a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?q=16th+and+K+Streets+NW&amp;um=1&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=N&amp;tab=wl&amp;authuser=0">16th and K Streets</a>, the heart of downtown D.C. and only a couple blocks from the White House. The kind of spot a terrorist would want to plant a bomb.</p>
<p>So what happens when said bomb explodes at the seat of government? As much as the study states the obvious&mdash;a nuke will destroy an extremely large part of D.C.!&mdash;it paints a horrifying, incredibly detailed radioactive portrait, step by vaporizing step. Unlike the Cold War-era bombs of yore, which were designed to erase entire capitals, a "smaller" bomb like the one in question here would, hypothetically, leave survivors. What happens to us?</p>
<h2>Three Layers of Destruction</h2>
<p>Like a bean dip, a nuclear blast includes three strata of annihilation:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Severe Damage Zone (half mile radius): Most buildings destroyed, hazards and radiation initially prevents entry into the area; low survival likelihood.</p>
<p>The Moderate Damage Zone (half to 1 mile radius): Significant building damage and rubble, downed utility poles, overturned automobiles, fires, and many serious injuries. Early medical assistance can significantly improve the number of survivors.</p>
<p>Light Damage Zone (1 to 3 miles radius): <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/windows" class="hidden_link">Windows</a> broken, mostly minor injuries that are highly survivable even without immediate medical care.</p>
</blockquote>
<p class="float_left"><a href="http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17gfdu5zo87nhpng/original.png"><img class="image_1 v10_medium" src="http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17gfdu5zo87nhpng/medium.png" border="0" alt="Here's What Happens When Our Nation's Capital Is Nuked" title="Here's What Happens When Our Nation's Capital Is Nuked" width="300" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17gfdu5zo87nhpng/original.png"></a>Most of the federal government's physical presence would be obliterated. The White House, Treasury Department, Old Executive Office Building, vaporized instantly. The Capitol in ruins. The National Mall, scorched. And of course, many square miles of residential blocks exposed to shock waves and flying debris.&nbsp;</p>
<p>All of these are pretty bad&mdash;the first "zone" is a death sentence, the third still awful. And this is only including the destructive power of flame, fireballs, and shockwaves. What about fallout?</p>
<p><a href="http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17gfdu21k6sswpng/original.png"><img class="image_2 v10_medium" src="http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17gfdu21k6sswpng/medium.png" border="0" alt="Here's What Happens When Our Nation's Capital Is Nuked" title="Here's What Happens When Our Nation's Capital Is Nuked" width="300" /></a></p>
<h2>Fallout</h2>
<p>The study notes fallout patterns would vary wildly with the time of year&mdash;in April, Washington's affluent Bethesda suburb is hit with an enormous column of radioactive dust, while through much of the rest of the year, the city's poorer lower quadrants and Northern Virginia are exposed to aerial poison.</p>
<p>Despite the (again,&nbsp;<em>relatively</em>) smaller "blast" of the nuke likeliest to be handed off by a terrorist, fallout is impossibly devastating:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Within 10 to 20 miles of the detonation, exposures from fallout would be great enough to cause near-term (within hours) symptoms such as nausea and vomiting.</p>
<p>The orange area depicts exposures of 300 to 800 R for those who do not shelter soon enough. Most would experience immediate health effects (e.g., nausea and vomiting within 4 hours), and some fatalities would be likely without medical treatment For those in the dark blue area who do not take immediate shelter, outdoor exposures (&gt;800 R) would be great enough that fatalities are likely with or without medical treatment. Evacuation is not an option in this area because fallout would arrive too quickly (within 10 minutes) to evacuate.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Even if Washington and everyone in it isn't toasted immediately, many will die later.</p>
<h2>So what can we do?</h2>
<p>Not much! Short of keeping this from happening in the first place (important), the report concludes poorly:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The magnitude of a terrorist attack involving [such an attack] will overwhelm all response resources.</p>
</blockquote>
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<p>There's no way to truly prepare for a nuclear attack&mdash;the point is to dismantle any given society. It'll always do just that. And no matter how many times the government can babble Eisenhower-era nonsense like this:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>DUCK and COVER: After an unexplained dazzling flash of light, do not approach windows, and stay behind cover for at least a minute to prevent injuries from flying and falling debris, such as broken glass.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We still can't treat a nuclear attack like a bad blizzard. You might say there's no harm in having a "preparedness plan" in place, as if this were a fire in a high school, but the more we think we can survive a nuclear attack, the more comfortable we might become with waging one.</p>
<p><strong>The report can be read in its entirety below. [<a href="http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2012/03/ncr_nuclear.html">FAS</a>]</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/85361631" title="View ncr on Scribd">ncr</a><iframe width="100%" height="600" frameborder="0" src="http://www.scribd.com/embeds/85361631/content?start_page=1&amp;view_mode=list" data-auto-height="true" data-aspect-ratio=""></iframe></p>
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<p><em>This <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5893224/heres-what-happens-when-our-nations-capital-is-nuked">post</a> originally appeared at <a href="http://www.gizmodo.com">Gizmodo</a>.</em></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/if-dc-gets-nuked-2012-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/the-crazy-story-of-the-man-who-pretended-to-invent-email-2012-3The Crazy Story Of The Man Who Pretended To Invent Emailhttp://www.businessinsider.com/the-crazy-story-of-the-man-who-pretended-to-invent-email-2012-3
Tue, 06 Mar 2012 13:44:00 -0500Sam Biddle
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/4f5658ca69bedd872400000b/shiva-ayyadurai.jpg" border="0" alt="Shiva Ayyadurai" /></p><p>Shiva&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/#!/shivaayyadurai">Ayyadurai</a>, is a shimmering intellectual. He holds&nbsp;<a href="http://stuff.mit.edu/people/vashiva/index.html">four</a>&nbsp;degrees from MIT (where he lectures), numerous patents, honors, and awards. He also says he invented email, and there's a global conspiracy against him.</p>
<p>Guess which one of these statements is true.</p>
<p>In 1978, a precocious 14-year-old from New Jersey invented email. You can see him doing it in the photo at the top right of your screen&mdash;the kid glued to his monitor. In that picture, he's busy showing off his creation&mdash;a way for office staff to message each other via computer. As he's happy to gab to the&nbsp;<em><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/washington-post" class="hidden_link">Washington Post</a></em>,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-innovations/va-shivaayyadurai-inventor-of-e-mail-honored-by-smithsonian/2012/02/17/gIQA8gQhKR_story.html">which recently ran a profile of him</a>, Ayyadurai was a teen wonder who invented the electronic messaging system with which we all communicate, back in 1978.</p>
<p>Ayyadurai's collection of "historical documents" is now to be interred at the Smithsonian, the Post reported, laid gloriously on the pillar of American history alongside artifacts of Occidental Civilzation such as Dizzy Gillespie's trumpet, Thomas Jefferson's Bible, and a 1903 Winton, "the first car driven across the United States." Ayyadurai is about to become more than just a gifted programmer and Professional Smart Man, but a historical figure. All of this leading up to a plum book deal with Norton, proclaiming his place in history as the upstart inventor of email itself.</p>
<p>But why have you never heard of him? Probably because there's precious little evidence that Ayyadurai came remotely close to inventing email, beyond a few misleading childhood documents and a US Copyright&nbsp;<a href="http://www.vashiva.com/images/vashiva_patent3_enl.jpg">form</a>&nbsp;of dubious weight. This was enough to convince the Washington Post and Smithsonian? Before you could even finish the Post's ode,&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/#!/emikolawole">Emi Kolawole</a>, the reporter behind the piece, issued a stumbling correction:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A number of readers have accurately pointed out that electronic messaging predates V. A. Shiva Ayyadurai's work in 1978. However, Ayyadurai holds the copyright to the computer program called "email," establishing him as the creator of the "computer program for [an] electronic mail system" with that name, according to the U.S. Copyright Office.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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<p>Well, that's a rather different claim to fame entirely, isn't it? After we&nbsp;<a href="http://gizmodo.com/5887480/the-inventor-of-email-did-not-invent-email">posted incredulously</a>, Ayyadurai's PR rep was quick to rally us toward his cause&mdash;and the case was urgent. Not only was Ayyadurai desperate to set the record straight, but there was a tale of globalization and woe that explained the detractors. Ayyadurai wasn't being accused of lying about inventing email because hadn't invented it; he was the victim of international character assassination.&nbsp;This goes all the way to the top.</p>
<p>&nbsp;In 2009, Ayyadurai worked for the Indian government, helping to run&nbsp;<a href="http://www.csir.res.in/">CSIR</a>, a national R&amp;D incubator tasked with finding homegrown patents and turning them into national high tech moneymakers. According to Ayyadurai, the center, with its billions of dollars to spend, was as corrupt as you'd imagine an R&amp;D incubator in a developing country would be. Dissent was verboten, patents were plagiarized, and the few ideas of worth were rounded up laid fallow. When someone tried to speak up, they were canned. Meanwhile, plush villas, fat salaries, and state-provided cars were doled out to scientists within the organization on the dime of the Indian people.</p>
<p><em>This&nbsp;<a href="http://gizmodo.com/5888702/corruption-lies-and-death-threats-the-crazy-story-of-the-man-who-pretended-to-invent-email" target="_blank">post</a>&nbsp;originally appeared at&nbsp;<a href="http://gizmodo.com/" target="_blank">Gizmodo</a>.</em></p>
<p>Ayyadurai couldn't sit idly by while this happened. He admonished his management in a letter he circulated within CSIR, calling for freedom of speech among colleagues. The Indian government clamped down immediately: He was banned from further communiques, promptly fired, evicted from his government housing, and urged to flee the country, lest his life and family be harmed. Phone calls of warning and threat were persistent, he says.</p>
<p>So Ayyadurai did flee, returning to MIT, where he's generally described by his colleagues as a nut and fraud&mdash;the terms "asshole," and "loon" were tossed around freely by professors who were happy to talk about their coworker but prefer to remain anonymous. "Don't know him, but [he] didn't invent email. If he claims to have done so he's a dick," said one MIT brain.</p>
<p>Ayyadurai is convinced the Indian government isn't through with him. He claims that it hired a team of "bloggers" and PR hatchet men to smear him across the internet. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/target" class="hidden_link">Target</a> number one? His claim to be the father of email.</p>
<p><a href="http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17etngn582o9sjpg/original.jpg"><img class="image_2 v10_medium" src="http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17etngn582o9sjpg/medium.jpg" border="0" alt="Corruption, Lies, and Death Threats: The Crazy Story of the Man Who Pretended to Invent Email" title="Corruption, Lies, and Death Threats: The Crazy Story of the Man Who Pretended to Invent Email" width="300" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></a>On the phone, Ayyadurai comes off as kind, a man of nervous tact. But it also absolutely feels like trying to sell you something that's just not sticking&mdash;a sort of mainframe Willy Loman. At publications he's duped into letting him opine unfettered, he's email's inventor, through and through. He also owns dozens of immodest domains to that point&mdash;<a href="http://www.inventorofemail.com/">InventorOfEmail.com</a>,&nbsp;<a href="http://dremail.com/">DrEmail.com</a>,<a href="http://emailinventor.com/">EmailInventor.com</a>&mdash;you get the point. No? Well Ayyadura has literally 100 more sites (103 in total) dedicated to making sure you do.</p>
<p>But press Ayyadurai, and he gets desperate, as his entire faux-fame rests upon semantic tricks, falsehoods, and a misinformation campaign.</p>
<p>Shiva Ayyadurai didn't invent email&mdash;he created "EMAIL," an electronic mail system implemented at the University of Medicine and Dentistry in Newark, New Jersey. It's doubtful he realized it as a little teen, but laying claim to the name of a product that's the generic term for a universal technology gives you acres of weasel room. But creating a type of airplane named AIRPLANE doesn't make you Wilbur Wright.</p>
<p>The actual pioneers of email were breaking new ground more than a decade before Ayyadurai concocted his dental memo system. Electronic mail predates Ayyadurai's ability to spell, let alone code.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.rpi.edu/dept/NewsComm/sub/fame/inductees/raymondtomlinson.html">Ray Tomlinson</a>&nbsp;is best known for having sent the first text letter between two computers on ARPANET in '71&mdash;y'know, an&nbsp;<em>email</em>. He also picked out the @ sign. A modest career. And despite Ayyadurai's insistence that, at the very least, he was the first to make use of the To/From/CC/BCC/etc fields we still use in <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/gmail" class="hidden_link">Gmail</a> today, this too is a personal fantasy. Tomlinson, who began working on early inter-computer messaging when Ayyadurai was a year old, explained to us how he became well-versed with these linchpins of modern email years before Ayyadurai drew them up on his own:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[We] had most of the headers needed to deliver the message (to:, cc:, etc.) as well as identifying the sender (from:) and when the message was sent (date:) and what the message was about. I chose the Latin word "re" meaning "about" for this. This apparently too obscure and was replaced with "subject:". However, "re:" is still use in the subject field to refer to the subject of the message to which the message is a reply. RFC 561 documents the headers as of 1973. Before that the standard was de facto. You could include any header you wanted in a message, but you had better use to:, cc:, etc. if you wanted the receiving program to understand.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These email underpinnings were&nbsp;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc733.txt">further cemented in 1977's RFC 733</a>, a foundational document of what became the internet itself&mdash;a full year before Ayyadurai's EMAIL project.</p>
<p>It was rough around the edges, but it was email. The work of Tomlinson and his peers was limited, but so too was the internet&mdash;and both exploded together. But ask Ayyadurai, and he dismisses it all&mdash;these messages weren't email, but "messages" and nothing more, relegated to some inferior class of communications that he compares to everyday "text messaging and morse code." It was all just sloppy streams of letters until he made EMAIL&mdash;and only then did the system behind Gmail, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/blackberry" class="hidden_link">BlackBerry</a>, and every computer on the planet see light.</p>
<p>But Ayyadurai's claim that he revolutionized how those messages are sent isn't uncontested either.&nbsp;<a href="http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is99/governance/crocker_bio.html">Dave Crocker</a>, another eminent figure in the history of actual email, calls Ayyadurai's posturing "theatrical," rattling off a fat list of email clients&mdash;MSG, SNDMSG, HERMES, MS&mdash;that did pretty much what EMAIL did, years and years before Ayyadurai started coding. "For a 14 year old his work was impressive," Crocker told us over the phone. "What he's saying about it now as a much older adult is also impressive&mdash;but in a very different way."</p>
<p>It's possible Ayyadurai was the first to come up with the term "EMAIL." That alone would be a feat. "In 1971, we called them 'messages,'" explains Tomlinson, a man so accomplished he can casually mention such things. But even that claim is tenuous, as Crocker points to a scholarly&nbsp;<a href="http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/accession/102661013">journal</a>&nbsp;titled "EMMS; Electronic Mail and Message Systems." It was published a year before Ayyadurai did anything. "Newsletters for a topic don't usually start before the topic has been invented," says Crocker.</p>
<p>It's also possible the idea of copying decades-old paper standbys like "blind carbon copy" occurred to Ayyadurai independently of ARPA's work, and that he put it together in a friendly software package. But that's about as much as Ayyadurai has on his side, PR team and media credulity notwithstanding. The fact is that the labors of people like Tomlinson and Crocker are the monkey to your Gmail's&nbsp;<em>homo sapiens</em>, explains Tomlinson: "Email has evolved &mdash; FTP is no longer used to transport email. Additional media may be used instead of plain text. Messages are stored in a myriad of ways &mdash; Gmail stores messages in databases on huge server farms, messages on my end are stored in files on an IMAP server, etc., but the essence, even the at-sign, remains the same." That explanation? The words of an "elite group of people who think they own innovation," according to Ayyadurai.</p>
<p>Except they have history on their side. They need no aggrandizement, no&nbsp;<em>TIME</em>&nbsp;article, no need to take the&nbsp;<em>Washington Post</em>&nbsp;on a ride, no baseless Smithsonian tribute (the museum declined to comment on Ayyadurai's false apotheosis). They've done their work. But anyone who cares about the history of the astoundingly clever and complex things we use daily might suffer from Ayyadurai's ego campaign. Ayyadurai is free to self-promote&mdash;and he's doing a hell of a job&mdash;but when he delves into revisionism, it's a rare ego trip we shouldn't let slide.</p>
<p><em>This <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5888702/corruption-lies-and-death-threats-the-crazy-story-of-the-man-who-pretended-to-invent-email" target="_blank">post</a> originally appeared at <a href="http://gizmodo.com/" target="_blank">Gizmodo</a>.</em></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-crazy-story-of-the-man-who-pretended-to-invent-email-2012-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/inside-instagram-how-slowing-down-put-the-little-startup-in-the-fast-lane-2012-2Inside Instagram: How Slowing Down Put The Little Startup In The Fast Lanehttp://www.businessinsider.com/inside-instagram-how-slowing-down-put-the-little-startup-in-the-fast-lane-2012-2
Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:41:29 -0500Mat Honan
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/4e78df326bb3f7e23a000000/instagram-new-filters.jpg" border="0" alt="instagram new filters" /></p><p>The must-have app on the <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/iphone">iPhone</a> is not iMessage. It's not <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/itunes">iTunes</a> or <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/safari">Safari</a> or even Find My iPhone. It's <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/instagram">Instagram</a>, the photo-sharing app that once described itself as "quirky." Cultish would be more appropriate these days.</p>
<p>Those who use and love Instagram are locked to their iPhones in far tighter fashion than any contract could ever manage. Just ask someone whose Instagrams show up regularly in your <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/facebook">Facebook</a> or <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/twitter">Twitter</a> feed; they'll tell you they're incapable of using a phone that doesn't have the service. Yes, Instagram is where your friends drop photos of their lunch. But it's more than that: It's a real-time window that peers out into the wide world. It's where millions post photos of revolutions, riots, the ugly, the beautiful, and the banal. Abandon the iPhone and that window slams shut. And that's a powerful incentive to stay put.</p>
<p>Sure, there are other notable iOS-only apps&mdash;<a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/instapaper-llc">Instapaper</a>, for example, or <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/flipboard">Flipboard</a>. And of course <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/apple">Apple</a> itself makes a slew of useful apps that best anything similar on competing platforms&mdash;like the aforementioned iMessage and Safari. But all of those have analogues on other platforms. Not Instagram. Others apps may duplicate what it does&mdash;when it comes to photo processing, that is&mdash;but without the network, none have its appeal. You want to be on the thing your friends are on. You want to go where the real-time visual network already exists. And, for now at least, that's not <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/android">Android</a> or <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/windows">Windows</a> Phone.</p>
<p>In retrospect, Instagram is obvious. Take a picture. Make it better. <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/share">Share</a> it instantly. That's all it does, but it does it very well. The app applies photo-filters that add a veneer of fake nostalgia to the present day, with Land Camera and Kodachrome hues. Then, if you want, you can post it on your social network of choice.</p>
<p>You can think of it like a visual Twitter, or a quicker <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/flickr">Flickr</a>. But mostly, you should think of it as a bonafide blockbuster.</p>
<p>Instagram launched on October 6, 2010 at 12:30 am, with just two people: company founders <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/kevin-systrom-1">Kevin Systrom</a> and <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/mike-krieger">Mike Krieger</a>. Both very young: 28 and 25 respectively. Kevin has a lot of presence. He's tall and direct and on point; in person he's a lot like he appears in&nbsp;<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cavHNSZTyAg">Best Buy's recent Super Bowl commercial</a>. He had been an intern at Odeo where he met <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/jack-dorsey">Jack Dorsey</a> and Ev Williams, and watched Twitter take off. Then, while in grad school at Stanford, he met Mike Krieger, an affable Brazilian programmer with an easy smile who still comes across as completely awestruck that he's got this wolf by the ears. Together, they founded <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/burbn">Burbn</a>, a location-sharing service. It failed to catch fire. But their second try? Five alarm.</p>
<p>There are a mere ten employees at Instagram&mdash;only eight of whom are even in the US. Yet in the past year and change it has racked up more than 15 million users, who have uploaded some 500 million photos. The service has pulled in $7.5 million in investments, including money from Twitter founder Jack Dorsey. It's already available in ten different languages, and, having already scored a hit stateside, is piling on users in China, Brazil, and throughout Europe. All this without having a Web interface. All this while only being available on the iPhone. And all this while iterating and scaling and building out the back end like a company that commands an army of developers. It doesn't.</p>
<p>Based on outward appearances, you might think the Instagram crew a relatively quiet bunch&mdash;after all, they only have an iPhone app and a&nbsp;<a href="http://instagr.am/">placeholder-like website</a>&nbsp;that offers basically no functionality. But since last October, the team has added hashtags and autocomplete functions, completely reworked the comment interface, added email sharing, converted the entire image pipeline to Open GL, created a news view, added support for high res images, tacked on 10 languages, and rolled out a slew of new filters and other features. All this while completely rebuilding the back end to support its exponential growth. Phew.</p>
<p>And despite all that, the only thing people want to know is when it's coming to Android, or when it's coming to Windows Phone. We do too. Because when it does? 15 million will seem like a blip.</p>
<h3>Justin Bieber Is a Scaling Problem</h3>
<p>Instagram isn't just small; it's tiny. It's miniscule. It is famously located in Twitter's old digs in San Francisco's South Park neighborhood. But here's the thing: Instagram subleases its space from another company. Instagram isn't in Twitter's old office, it's in Twitter's old&nbsp;<em>conference room</em>. The entire company is nothing more than a collection of desks arranged bullpen-style in a room that is smaller than most two-car garages. There's also a small reception area (sans receptionist), a collection of vintage cameras, a cow rug and, well, that's it. But for a little company, it has some very big names.</p>
<p>"Celebrities cause things to break," explains Systrom, matter-of-fact, while slurping down a coffee approximately the size of a cow heart.</p>
<p>Just the day before, President&nbsp;<a href="http://gizmodo.com/5872881/barack-obamas-first-instagram-post">Barack Obama had signed on</a>&nbsp;and begun sending out photos. This seemed like a real sign that Instagram had arrived. Obama already has accounts on Flickr and Facebook. He (or his people) must have seen something unique and wonderful in Instagram's audience, some way to reach people via that channel that it couldn't through others. When the President joins your network, it's news. And while it's great news, it can be the kind of thing a company isn't prepared for. But as it turns out, Obama is a fractional compared to Justin Bieber.</p>
<p>"Our first celebrity was Snoop Dogg. I remember getting an email that was like &lsquo;Snoop Dogg's people want to talk,'" says Systrom while Mike chuckles. (Mike chuckles a lot.) "That was a year ago. It's amazing how we've grown as a company since then. I think for us to say that, when we set out we expected it would take a little more than a year for somebody like Barack Obama to sign up, that would be a lie."</p>
<p>Nonetheless, today Instagram is lousy with famous users. Snoop, Obama, and Bieber; Tony Hawk, Jamie Oliver, and Ryan Seacrest are all onboard. So too is the media. <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/national-geographic">National Geographic</a>, <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/nbc">NBC</a> News, <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/abc">ABC</a> News&mdash;even <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/playboy">Playboy</a> has an account. All those heavily-followed accounts have done more than give the company bragging rights, however. They're edge cases that have helped Instagram build for the center.</p>
<p>"We learned really quickly, especially with celebrity users, about the design and what would break," explains Krieger, who leads development as the company's CTO. "We didn't really design with 50,000 likes in mind, but now suddenly this Bieber photo has 50,000 likes. That is a totally different UI issue. Or all the sudden he has hundreds of comments, and you can't display them all at once or the app just scrolls on endlessly."</p>
<p>It was because of Bieber and other popular users&mdash;including ones who have made a name for themselves on Instagram, like photographer&nbsp;<a href="http://web.stagram.com/n/colerise/">Cole Rise</a>&mdash;that it started comment threading and made the meta-information below a photo collapsable. Otherwise, the app would waste valuable screen real-estate when users simply wanted to get to the next photo in their stream. And it hints at why it isn't on Android, or Windows phone, or, God forbid, Blackberry yet: They've been scaling.</p>
<h3>What I Saw at the Fail Whale</h3>
<p>Twitter was nearly undone by scaling problems. Just as it began to really take off, in 2008 as it got into the millions of users territory, it began breaking down with regularity. The Fail Whale was everyone's least favorite mammal. And that was almost entirely due to Twitter's back-end, which was originally designed as an extremely simple program that ran on an open-source application framework. As it turned out, that didn't scale.</p>
<p>Twitter's architecture was fine for content management&mdash;like a blogging platform&mdash;but not so great for a true real-time communications system with an exponentially growing user base. Messaging systems have specific needs&mdash;reliable queuing, concurrency, robust caching&mdash;that it just didn't have. The Twitter team tried to write those features themselves and attach them to the existing framework, but every addition created even more stability issues. One of the biggest issues was the simple growth of the size of people's networks. Rails, around which Twitter was built, was designed to simplify complex database relationships by making many queries. But the number of queries needed to support the complicated social relationships people build on Twitter were overwhelming its servers. The end result? Very many people who were very frustrated with Twitter.</p>
<p>Systrom saw all this from up close at first, and then at a distance. He was an intern at Odeo when that company cratered, and from its ashes rose Twitter. All of which helps explain why Instagram is not on Android yet: the team has been doing so much work on the network's back end to make sure it doesn't suffer similar problems.</p>
<p>"The best feature is that it works" explains Systrom. "You compare our history to other social media startups and it's been very good. We've been very careful about scaling."</p>
<p>And to that end the team has spent much of the last year planning for growth. Because they don't want to revamp the system while its under load, that's meant doing things like calculating where likes-per-second will be in a month&mdash;or six months&mdash;and reconfiguring the app and back end to support it. There is no Fail Whale or Tumblrbeast of Instagram. There's just uptime. And they want to keep it that way, even as they continue to blow up.</p>
<div>&nbsp;</div>
<p>"To be honest, 15 million is a small fraction of where we want to be, so we have to think 6 months to a year ahead," says Systrom.</p>
<p>That's both complicated and amplified by the fact that Instagram is mobile only. It's not a web app. It doesn't run in the browser. So to get to that next level, it has to support completely different platforms. And doing that means offering a user experience on Android that's the equal of the one on <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/ios">iOS</a>. And that's a big problem to tackle, made all the more so by the expectations game.</p>
<p>More than a year ago, Systrom announced that Instagram was coming to Android. So. <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/where">Where</a> is it? That's all everyone he talks to wants to know. Systrom is outgoing and direct, but he's so prone to facetiousness that it's not always clear when he's being serious. It can leave you feeling uncomfortable, wondering if he's fucking with you. When I asked about Android, he came across as being wearied by the question. In fact, he seemed almost resentful. But it was hard to penetrate that mask of sarcasm.</p>
<p>"You guys have been talking about Android phones for a while now," I began.</p>
<p>"For a year!" He interjects. "And I'm gonna keep talking about it!"</p>
<p>"To be at 15 million users on one platform is not something any other social mobile company can say. There are a lot of others that are in that size range but are multi-platform. We saw an opportunity to be really good at one thing, and it turns out that helped us. It wasn't because we felt like Android wasn't an opportunity we wanted to go after. It wasn't about the quality of the phone&mdash;there are plenty of awesome Android phones; we have a bunch in the office that have beautiful displays and beautiful cameras. It's more that we were three people trying to keep the site up. We're now eight people, with ten people worldwide."</p>
<p>"The only thing that will make other platforms happen is natural growth of the team. I think we didn't expect how quickly we'd grow a year ago when we were like &lsquo;oh let's work on Android next.' Everything became a priority, and because everything became a priority we had to focus on what was most important which was to keep the site going and make users really happy. A person is a person is a person no matter what phone you own. I'm excited to be on Android someday. Are you kidding me? Our growth is going to double."</p>
<p>And as to those rumors that&nbsp;<a href="http://gizmodo.com/5877508/is-instagram-coming-to-windows-phone">Instagram is going to develop an app for Windows phone before Android</a>, leap-frogging the most popular mobile platform in the world? "We're evaluating all different platforms all the time, but Android is very much our obvious next step," he says.</p>
<p>And if that's an obvious next step, there's an equally obvious way to get there. For a company valued at $20 million, with almost a million dollars invested for each employee, the big question is why they haven't gone out and hired more people.</p>
<p>"We only hire the best of the best."</p>
<p>It's an unlikely answer, puzzling even. But that small team, of course, also helps keep them from burning through cash. More people mean more paychecks, which means more of a need to generate revenue. And with its big stack of cash, it has the luxury of taking its time. At least, for now.</p>
<h3>Beyond Facebook</h3>
<p>"When we launched [the <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/iphone-4">iPhone 4</a>] was like three weeks old. It has this great camera and this beautiful display. There were a lot of people who had tried to do what we had done before. We tried to be different in a few key ways, but one of them was the timing," says Systrom.</p>
<p>And indeed, timing is everything. If past is prologue, Instagram's time is about to come in a bigger way that it ever has before. Because Systrom and Krieger exude ambition. Instagram doesn't just want to be bigger than, say, a competitor like <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/path">Path</a>. It wants to be Facebook big. It wants to become the indispensable visual strorytelling medium. It wants to be an entertainment platform, where people can come and consume. And getting there means getting on every platform, in every country.</p>
<p>"What interests us are the natural limits in terms of how many people are owning these phones, whether that's Apple, or Android or whatever it is. I don't foresee a future where people don't have some sort of phone that's like a computer. I don't foresee a future where those phones don't have cameras in them. That spells a future where smartphones are the status quo. You have to ask yourself how you allow people to communicate what's in their lives," says Systrom. "I don't like the idea of Instagram as a photo sharing service, and I don't think it is," says Systrom, "it's very much a communication tool, it's a visual communications tool."</p>
<p>"The printing press did something really big for the world when everyone could get books in their hands and read. I'm not saying we're a printing press, but I am saying technology pushes people forward in some way and unlocks potential. we're not focused on how we can make toys, we're focused on how do we change the world in some real way. Like, how many companies have been handed the opportunity to get 15 million users in the first year? Not many. We want to take this ticket and ride."</p>
<p>And so Instagram plods along. Deliberately. Methodically. Not caring what you think about its pace. And you know what? If Facebook doesn't eat it. If Twitter's new hosted photos, or some other competitor, doesn't destroy it. If it can finally ship an Andriod app, and then a Windows Phone app. If it can just keep doing what it's been doing, but bigger, faster, better. If it can do all that, it just may get there. Either way, it's going to be fun to watch.</p>
<p><em>This <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5878942/inside-instagram-how-slowing-its-roll-put-the-little-startup-in-the-fast-lane">post</a> originally appeared at <a href="http://gizmodo.com/" target="_blank">Gizmodo</a>.</em></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/inside-instagram-how-slowing-down-put-the-little-startup-in-the-fast-lane-2012-2#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/see-what-researchers-just-pulled-from-the-depths-of-new-zealands-seas-2012-2See What Researchers Just Pulled From The Depths Of New Zealand’s Seashttp://www.businessinsider.com/see-what-researchers-just-pulled-from-the-depths-of-new-zealands-seas-2012-2
Sat, 04 Feb 2012 15:05:00 -0500Andrew Tarantola
<p>No, this photo hasn't been 'shopped. You are looking at a specimen from a barely-known and even-more-rarely-seen group of "Supergiant"&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphipoda">amphipods</a>&mdash;crustaceans that grow twenty times the size of their relatives and can measure a&nbsp;<em>foot or more in length.</em></p>
<p>Amphipods are often referred to as the "insects of the sea" and are found throughout the world's lakes and oceans, feeding primarily on carcasses and other organic debris. These tiny animals don't often grow more than 1cm in length, except the Supergiant viariety of course, which can exceed 11 inches head to tail. "They actually don't feel real," Alan Jamieson, University of Aberdeen lecturer and expedition leader, told OurAmazingPlanet of the November 2011 find. "They feel like plastic toys. They have a waxy texture to them."</p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/4f2d7c0069bedd692300001e/copyright-of-oceanlab-university-of-aberdeen-uk.jpg" border="0" alt="Copyright of Oceanlab, University of Aberdeen, UK." /></p>
<p>The creature, along with other specimens, was captured in a deep-water trap located four miles down in the Kermadec Trench, one of the deepest on Earth. "We pulled up the trap, and lying among the fish were these absolutely massive amphipods, and there was no inkling whatsoever that these things should be there," said Jamieson.</p>
<p>These massive crustaceans were originally discovered in 1899 when two were caught in a trawler net in the Atlantic. They then "disappeared" into the watery depths for nearly a hundred years until scientists in Hawaii photographed them in the northern Pacific. The largest ever was regurgitated by a seagull in 1983 and&mdash;what was left of it, at least&mdash;measured 13 inches.</p>
<p>The research team plans to return to the site to potentially collect more of these amphipods as well as their original quarry, the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.ouramazingplanet.com/453-fish-discovered-45-miles-deep-in-ocean.html">deep-sea snailfish</a>&nbsp;which has only been found once&mdash;ever&mdash;in 1952. [<a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0202/Supergiant-amphipod-discovered-in-deep-sea-near-New-Zealand">CS Monitor</a>&nbsp;-&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphipoda">Wikipedia</a>]</p>
<p><em>This <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5881882/researchers-pull-enormous-amphipod-from-the-depths-of-new-zealands-deep-seas" target="_blank">post</a> originally appeared at <a href="http://gizmodo.com/" target="_blank">Gizmodo</a>.</em></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/see-what-researchers-just-pulled-from-the-depths-of-new-zealands-seas-2012-2#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/the-apple-bug-that-let-us-spy-on-a-total-strangers-iphone-2012-2The Apple Bug That Let Us Spy On A Total Stranger’s iPhonehttp://www.businessinsider.com/the-apple-bug-that-let-us-spy-on-a-total-strangers-iphone-2012-2
Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:53:00 -0500Sam Biddle
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/4f29940e69bedd775f00002b/gizmodo.jpg" border="0" alt="Gizmodo" /></p><p><em>This <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5880593/the-apple-bug-that-let-us-spy-on-a-total-strangers-iphone" target="_blank">post</a> originally appeared at &nbsp;<a href="http://gizmodo.com/" target="_blank">Gizmodo</a>.</em></p>
<p>Every single iMessage to and from this man's iPhone&mdash;his friends call him&nbsp;<em>Wiz</em>&mdash;has been sent to us by accident. We know about his job, sex life, and address. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/apple" class="hidden_link">Apple</a>, you might want to fix this.</p>
<p>The story is simple: a friend's son had some trouble with his <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/iphone-4" class="hidden_link">iPhone 4</a>. Being an awesome mom, our friend took it into the Apple Store when her kid was at school. School. Not college or grad school, but I'm-under-18 school.</p>
<p>When she got it back, her kid's phone was in perfect working order&mdash;but it had also become a portal into another man's private life. No matter how many times we've reset the phone and entered our friend's information, every incoming and outgoing iMessage meant for Wiz shows up on her child's phone. His phone had become her son's phone&mdash;and there was an iMessage bevy of stuff you wouldn't want your child to see.</p>
<p>The problem of iMessages winding up on the wrong screens isn't new&mdash;we&nbsp;<a href="http://gizmodo.com/5868223/imessage-keeps-texting-stolen-iphones-even-after-wipeout">mentioned</a>&nbsp;it back in December. At the time, the worry was that iPhone thieves could pry into your private communications. But that's not what's going on here&mdash;this is like a wiretap we didn't ask for&mdash;and Wiz has no idea I'm looped in on the whole thing. He texts throughout the day like usual, oblivious to the snooping. Now we see just how big of a deal this obscure "bug" is: Your entire personal life could be flung open, and you'd never know.</p>
<p>Take our word for it&mdash;we've gotten to know Wiz pretty well.</p>
<p>You probably underestimate how much of yourself you casually pour into texts each day. We know enough about this guy to stalk him, blackmail him, and harass him, using nothing more than what we've picked up. Based on only a handful of chitchat breadcrumbs and some <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/google" class="hidden_link">Google</a> work, we pinned down Wiz's home address, his <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/facebook" class="hidden_link">Facebook</a> profile, email address, personal information about friends, where he exercises, and&mdash;drumroll&mdash;the Apple store where he works. Yep! This Apple bug screwed an Apple employee&mdash;at the same store where our pal took her phone.</p>
<p>In all likelihood, Wiz's messages are being broadcast to a phone he's unaware of because he swapped his SIM card in while repairing our friend's phone&mdash;permanently tethering his textual life to a phone that isn't his. The theory that iMessages are deadbolted to SIM cards, rather than just being something you sign into a la <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/gmail" class="hidden_link">Gmail</a>, was bandied around&nbsp;<a href="http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/12/stolen-iphone-your-imessages-may-still-be-going-to-the-wrong-place.ars">by Ars Technica more than a month ago</a>.</p>
<p>It's impossible that Apple isn't aware of this problem.</p>
<p>But as long as it's the problem of thieves and their victims, maybe it's not high enough on the shit list to correct.</p>
<p>But again, no wrongdoing was committed here&mdash;no lost phone or pilfered login. Just a routine trip to the Genius Bar that's turned us into unwitting eavesdroppers. Hopefully this will be enough to give apple the message. Please fix this, guys.</p><h3>He booty-texts.</h3>
<p><p><img class="glimage" src="http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/4/2012/02/538ace864961d96d4b1438b96482cc2d.png" border="0" width="393" height="590" style="margin-top: 0px;" /></p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>He works at Apple.</h3>
<img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/4f2995f2ecad044c37000054-400-300/he-works-at-apple.jpg" alt="" />
<br/><br/><h3>He wanted to kiss the legs of a coworker (bad idea!).</h3>
<img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/4f29961269bedd775f00003e-400-300/he-wanted-to-kiss-the-legs-of-a-coworker-bad-idea.jpg" alt="" />
<br/><br/><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-apple-bug-that-let-us-spy-on-a-total-strangers-iphone-2012-2#he-and-his-friends-liked-swapping-tranny-pics-4">See the rest of the story at Business Insider</a> http://www.businessinsider.com/all-the-insane-loot-seized-from-megauploads-crazy-owners-2012-1All The Insane Loot Seized From Megaupload’s Crazy Ownershttp://www.businessinsider.com/all-the-insane-loot-seized-from-megauploads-crazy-owners-2012-1
Mon, 23 Jan 2012 09:02:14 -0500Sam Biddle
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/4f19b1d0eab8ea0455000001/kim-dotcom.jpg" border="0" alt="Kim Dotcom" /></p><p></p>
<p><em>This <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5877715/all-th" target="_blank">post</a> originally appeared at <a href="http://gizmodo.com/">Gizmodo</a>.</em></p>
<p>What do you spend your cash on when you're milking the hell out of the internet with your very own filesharing&nbsp;<a href="http://gizmodo.com/5877612/feds-kill-megaupload">supersite</a>? Buy things like a Rolls-Royce Phantom with a license plate reading "GOD." Now, the government owns it!</p>
<p><a href="http://gizmodo.com/5877612/feds-kill-megaupload">Revealed</a>&nbsp;in the enormous 72-page indictment against Megaupload's operators is the huge list of forfeited property&mdash;and it's way more than just their data servers (of which there were sixty). Some highlights?</p>
<h3><strong>Cars. Lots of cars:</strong></h3>
<blockquote>
<p>2010 Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG, VIN WDD2120772A103834, LicensePlate No. "STONED";73.<br />2010 Mini Cooper S Coupe, VIN WMWZG32000TZ03651, License PlateNo. "V";74.<br />2010 Mercedes-Benz ML63 AMG, VIN WDC1641772A608055, LicensePlate No. "GUILTY";75.<br />2007 Mercedes-Benz CL65 AMG, VIN WDD2163792A025130, LicensePlate No. "KIMCOM";76.<br />2009 Mercedes-Benz ML63 AMG, VIN WDC1641772A542449, LicensePlate No. "MAFIA";77.<br />2010 <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/toyota">Toyota</a> Vellfire, VIN 7AT0H65MX11041670, License Plate Nos."WOW" or "7";78.<br />2011 Mercedes-Benz G55 AMG, VIN WDB4632702X193395, LicensePlate Nos. "POLICE" or "GDS672";79.<br />2011 Toyota Hilux, VIN MR0FZ29G001599926, License PlateNo. "FSN455";80.<br /><a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/harley-davidson">Harley Davidson</a> Motorcycle, VIN 1HD1HPH3XBC803936, LicensePlate No. "36YED";81.<br />2010 Mercedes-Benz CL63 AMG, VIN WDD2163742A026653, LicensePlate No. "HACKER";82.<br />2005 Mercedes-Benz A170, VIN WDD1690322J184595, License PlateNo. "FUR252";83.<br />2005 Mercedes-Benz ML500, VIN WDC1641752A026107, License PlateNo. DFF816<br />1957 Cadillac El Dorado, VIN 5770137596;86.<br />2010 Sea-Doo <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/gtx">GTX</a> Jet Ski, VIN YDV03103E010;87.<br />1959 Cadillac Series 62 Convertible, VIN 59F115669;88.<br />Von Dutch Kustom Motor Bike, VIN 1H9S14955BB451257;89.<br />2006 Mercedes-Benz CLK DTM, VIN WDB2094421T067269;90.<br />2010 Mini Cooper S Coupe, VIN WMWZG32000TZ03648 LicensePlate No. "T";<br />1989 Lamborghini LM002, VIN ZA9LU45AXKLA12158, License PlateNo. "FRP358";92.<br />2011 Mercedes-Benz ML63, VIN 4JGBB7HB0BA666219</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>A lot of cars for seven guys. How about some dubious art?</h2>
<blockquote>
<p>Artwork, Predator Statue;<br />Artwork, <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/anonymous">Anonymous</a> Hooded Sculpture</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Predator statue?</p>
<h3><strong>But wouldn't be a kingpin operation without gadgets. And they had those too:</strong></h3>
<blockquote>
<p>Sharp LC-65XS1M 65" <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/lcd">LCD</a> TV<br />Sharp LC-65XS1M 65" LCD TV<br />TVLogic 56" LUM56W TV<br />Sharp 108" LCD Display TV<br />Sharp 108" LCD Display TV<br /><a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/sony">Sony</a> PMW-F3K Camera S/N 0200231;101.<br />Sony PMW-F3K Camera S/N 0200561;<br /><a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/samsung">Samsung</a> 820DXN 82" LCD TV<br />Samsung 820DXN 82" LCD TV<br />Samsung 820DXN 82" LCD TV</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Duplicates! If only they'd made it free long enough to see an OLED for sale.</p>
<p><strong>Update</strong>&nbsp;The elusive Rolls-Royce Phantom has been found! Eagle-eyed tipster Ming C. points to a CarJam (the New Zealand version of Carfax) listing for one black, drop-top Phantom with license plate&nbsp;<a href="http://www.carjam.co.nz/car/?plate=GOD">GOD</a>. What, the Feds are already getting it prepared to sell? MegaUpload's corpse isn't even cold yet.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/all-the-insane-loot-seized-from-megauploads-crazy-owners-2012-1#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/google-just-made-bing-the-best-search-engine-2012-1Google Just Made Bing The Best Search Enginehttp://www.businessinsider.com/google-just-made-bing-the-best-search-engine-2012-1
Fri, 13 Jan 2012 09:34:48 -0500Mat Honan
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/4f0c994869beddb108000042-400-260/google-search-result-amit-singhal-chikoo.jpg" border="0" alt="Google+ search result Amit Singhal Chikoo" width="400" height="260" /></p><p>I just switched the default search engine in my browser from Google to <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/bing">Bing</a>. And if you care about working efficiently, or getting the right results when you search, then maybe you should too. Don't laugh!<!-- %JUMP:More &raquo;% --></p>
<p>Google <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5874969/google-changes-the-way-its-search-engine-works-privacy-be-damned">changed the way search works</a> this week. It deeply integrated Google+ into search results. It's ostensibly meant to deliver more personalized results.</p>
<p>But it pulls those personalized results largely from Google services&mdash;Google+, Picasa, <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/youtube">YouTube</a>. Search for a restaurant, and instead of its <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/yelp">Yelp</a> page, the top result might be someone you know discussing it on Google Plus. Over at SearchEngineland, <a href="http://searchengineland.com/examples-google-search-plus-drive-facebook-twitter-crazy-107554">Danny Sullivan has compiled a series</a> of damning examples of the ways Google's new interface promotes Plus over relevancy. Long story short: It's a huge step backwards.</p>
<p>A lot of people are crying foul, and even "<a href="http://gizmodo.com/5875362/google-can-expect-a-call-from-the-ftc-over-its-new-social-search-feature">anti-trust."</a> Sure, it does seem pretty transparently designed to drive traffic and users to Google Plus, and to make Google Plus brand pages the go-to place for a company's social media presence. And it's true that results from <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/facebook">Facebook</a> and <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/twitter">Twitter</a> in particular have been noticeably kicked down.</p>
<p>But I didn't switch for political reasons, or as an act of protest. I don't care if Google hurts Twitter or Facebook&mdash;or even <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/friendster">Friendster</a> for that matter. Boo-hoo. I only care if it hurts me. And this does. Google broke itself.</p>
<p>For years, Google Search has been the highest quality web product I've ever used. It has remained consistently essential as an information-delivery mechanism. I typically hit it hundreds of times a day&mdash;on my phone, tablet, laptop and desktop. But with one update it wiped out all those years of loyalty and goodwill it had built up.</p>
<p>Sure, I can opt out of social results with a click&mdash;but as with all things I don't want to have to <em>opt out</em>. I don't want to have to make that extra click. I want to enter a query, and have the most relevant results returned to me as quickly as possible. (And if Google genuinely doesn't think it's a big deal for people to take the extra step oft opting out, why has it focused so relentlessly on optimizing speed for so many years?)</p>
<p>The great thing is, of course, you can just switch. Hit up your browser preferences, and swap your default to Bing. I know, I know, but yes I'm serious. Sure, Bing had a rocky start. But if you haven't seen it recently it's worth another look. It has a super clean interface. It's fast. And <a href="http://waxy.org/2011/10/google_kills_its_other_plus/">operators work the way you expect them to</a>. Best of all it's <em>relevant</em>.</p>
<p>In short, it's a lot like Google. Not the Google of today, but the Google you fell in love with, the one that put your search results above its financial ones. The Google that delivered.</p>
<p><em>This <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5875571/google-just-made-bing-the-best-search-engine" target="_blank">post</a> originally appeared at <a href="http://gizmodo.com/" target="_blank">Gizmodo</a>.</em></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-just-made-bing-the-best-search-engine-2012-1#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/a-man-in-saudi-arabia-tried-to-sell-his-son-for-20-million-on-facebook-2012-1A Dad Tried To Sell His Son On Facebook For $20 Million http://www.businessinsider.com/a-man-in-saudi-arabia-tried-to-sell-his-son-for-20-million-on-facebook-2012-1
Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:57:00 -0500Jesus Diaz
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/4dc18595ccd1d5194f190000/saudi-arabia-police.jpg" border="0" alt="saudi arabia police" /></p><p>If your dad were called Saud bin Nasser Al Shahry he would sell you on <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/facebook" class="hidden_link">Facebook</a> for $20 million.</p>
<p>That's what happened to a young kid from Saudi Arabia, who found himself for sale for exactly that amount in this social network.</p>
<p>Apparently, Saud is a failed businessmen who wanted authorities to help him when a local court ruled his debt-collecting firm illegal.</p>
<p>He asked the administration officials for financial help, but it was denied because he was older than 35.</p>
<p>Saudi Arabia considers child trafficking an offense, so some believe this is just a publicity stunt by the father. On the other hand, the country has been repeatedly blacklisted for human trafficking covering all ages and both sexes.</p>
<p>The US Department of State's Trafficking in Persons Report has listed Saudi Arabia as a hub for human trafficking for all its editions. In <a href="http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2011/164233.htm">the 2011 report</a>, they are blacklisted despite the country's prohibition:</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Saudi Arabia is a destination country for men and women subjected to forced labor and to a much lesser extent, forced prostitution. Men and women from Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, and many other countries voluntarily travel to Saudi Arabia as domestic servants or other low-skilled laborers, but some subsequently face conditions indicative of involuntary servitude, including nonpayment of wages, long working hours without rest, deprivation of food, threats, physical or sexual abuse, and restrictions on movement, such as the withholding of passports or confinement to the workplace. Recent reports of abuse include the driving of nails into a domestic worker's body.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">[...]</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Saudi Arabia offered temporary relief from deportation to two victims who identified themselves to authorities. However, victims who have run away from their employers, overstayed their visas, or otherwise violated the legal terms of their visas were frequently jailed without being identified as victims. Some Saudi employers prevented foreign workers from leaving the country by refusing permission for them to get exit visas; this resulted in workers working beyond their contract terms against their will, languishing in detention centers indefinitely, or paying money to their employers or immigration officials to let them leave.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The sale was found by Qatari newspaper [<a href="http://www.al-sharq.com/">Al Sharq</a> (in Arabic) via <a href="http://rt.com/news/son-sale-arab-saudi-199/">RT</a>, <a href="http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2011/164233.htm">Department of State</a>]</p>
<p><em>This <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5874447/dad-tries-to-sell-son-for-20-million-on-facebook" target="_blank">post</a> originally appeared at <a href="http://gizmodo.com/" target="_blank">Gizmodo</a>.</em></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/a-man-in-saudi-arabia-tried-to-sell-his-son-for-20-million-on-facebook-2012-1#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/meet-the-25-most-viral-people-on-the-internet-2011-12Meet The 25 Most Viral People On The Internethttp://www.businessinsider.com/meet-the-25-most-viral-people-on-the-internet-2011-12
Sat, 17 Dec 2011 09:00:00 -0500Mat Honan
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/4ebd48c369bedde42b000044-401-267/matt-drudge.jpg" border="0" alt="Matt Drudge" width="401" height="267" /></p><p>Sometimes a story or idea goes viral because it's too big to be ignored.</p>
<p>But more often it's because a single human being passes it along to an audience that's either massive, highly influential, or both.</p>
<p>There aren't too many people who can do that. These are the ones who can.</p>
<p>When they post something to a website, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/twitter" class="hidden_link">Twitter</a>, or <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/facebook" class="hidden_link">Facebook</a>, it's almost assured of blowing up. Meet the 25 most viral voices on the Internet.</p>
<p><em>This <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5863333/meet-the-25-most-viral-people-on-the-internet">post</a> originally appeared at <a href="http://gizmodo.com/" target="_blank">Gizmodo</a>.</em></p><h3>25. Andre Torrez</h3>
<img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/4eeb7c6b6bb3f77d5e000055-400-300/25-andre-torrez.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p><span class="modfont"><strong>Platform: <a href="http://notes.torrez.org/">Torrez.org</a>, <a href="http://mlkshk.com/">MLKSHK</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/#%21/torrez">Twitter</a></strong></span></p>
<p>Do you know Andre Torrez? You should. The <a href="https://twitter.com/#%21/torrez/followers" target="_blank">most influential person you follow on Twitter knows him</a>. He's created some of the most interesting communities online. From private watering holes for the Internet's jet set, to his new, open-to-anyone image board, MLKSHK. But more to the point, programmer-blogger Torrez is a classic idea seeder; a person who introduces concepts to the people who take them big.</p>
<p><em>Source: <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5863333/meet-the-25-most-viral-people-on-the-internet" target="_blank">Gizmodo</a>.</em></p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>24. Ben Huh</h3>
<img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/4c8e4c057f8b9a6069eb0800-400-300/24-ben-huh.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p><span class="modfont"><strong>Platform: <a href="http://cheezburger.com/">Cheezburger.com</a></strong></span></p>
<p>Ben Huh started with LOLcats, but his network of Websites have become the definition of virality on the Web, from infancy to grave. While <a href="http://thedailywh.at/">The Daily What</a> takes on the newest oddities of the day, <a href="http://knowyourmeme.com/">Know Your Meme</a> has become the canonical reference for everything viral. In short, Huh has built an end-to-end platform for Web popularity that lets people create things to go viral, point to web flotsam, track what's trending, and then explain how and why something has become popular. It's genius.</p>
<p><em>Source: <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5863333/meet-the-25-most-viral-people-on-the-internet" target="_blank">Gizmodo</a>.</em></p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>23. Starspirit</h3>
<img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/4d2b6af349e2ae5742110000-400-300/23-starspirit.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p><span class="modfont"><strong>Platform: <a href="http://www.stumbleupon.com/stumbler/starspirit">Stumbleupon</a></strong></span></p>
<p>Stumbleupon is the long boom. It's the stock to Twitter or Facebook's flow. Things that go big on StumbleUpon continue to generate traffic for years to come. And few have more juice than the self-described "woman from a mountain town" StarSpirit. She's been on StumbleUpon's <a href="http://www.stumbleupon.com/topstumblers/">list of top Stumblers</a> for years, thanks to the massively interesting links she surfaces and spreads. She's one of those Stumblers who by liking something another user has found, instantly makes it go big as it spreads across her network of 9,000 followers.</p>
<p><em>Source: <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5863333/meet-the-25-most-viral-people-on-the-internet" target="_blank">Gizmodo</a>.</em></p></p>
<br/><br/><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/meet-the-25-most-viral-people-on-the-internet-2011-12#22-ed-weissman-4">See the rest of the story at Business Insider</a> http://www.businessinsider.com/androids-newest-operating-system-the-best-most-human-friendly-version-yet-2011-11Android's Newest Operating System: The Best, Most Human-Friendly Version Yet (GOOG)http://www.businessinsider.com/androids-newest-operating-system-the-best-most-human-friendly-version-yet-2011-11
Thu, 17 Nov 2011 15:53:00 -0500Mat Honan
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/4ec565446bb3f7413d00000a/gizmodoimg.jpg" border="0" alt="GizmodoImg" /></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/google" class="hidden_link">Google</a> puts a lot of effort into talking about what's fun in <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/ice-cream-sandwich" class="hidden_link">Ice Cream Sandwich</a>.</p>
<p>It's certainly advanced, and powerful, and more human-focused than past Androids. But I'm not sure I'd call it fun. And that's a problem.</p>
<h3 style="padding-left: 30px;"><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/androids-newest-operating-system-the-best-most-human-friendly-version-yet-2011-11?utm_source=dlvr.it&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_campaign=tools#a-look-at-ice-cream-sandwich-1">Click here for a gallery of Ice Cream Sandwich &gt;</a></h3>
<p>Fun is something you do because you want to. Fun is more than just diversion, it's pleasure. It's transcendent.</p>
<p>I'm not sure Google gets fun. They have a good understanding of what will objectively appeal to human beings, in the same way a Cylon might. But Ice Cream Sandwich, while powerful, is not a fun experience. For all its cutting-edge features, it can't shake the cold, distant style that's become Android's unfortunate hallmark.</p>
<p>And without the fun, while you may find it useful and even essential, I'm not sure you'll love it.<!-- %JUMP:More &raquo;% --></p>
<p>From the very first time I fired up a G1, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/android" class="hidden_link">Android</a> has always struck me as more powerful than Apple's <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/ios" class="hidden_link">iOS</a>. Android's always had more gee-whiz features, straight out of the future. Oh, iOS 5 can trigger a reminder when you get to a certain location?</p>
<p>Cute, but <a href="http://www.wired.com/gadgets/wireless/magazine/17-02/lp_guineapig?currentPage=all">I was doing that with Locale on Android in 2008</a>. Background processes. Notifications. Built-in navigation. Layers. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/nfc" class="hidden_link">NFC</a>. Etc. Android has always pushed the envelope of what's possible. That's admirable, but it has often come at the expense of dead-simple usability. And then there's Ice Cream Sandwich.</p>
<p>We're going to have a look at the new <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/samsung" class="hidden_link">Samsung</a> Galaxy Nexus all on its own. But today we want to look at the engine that drives it. Ice Cream Sandwich is by far the most usable Android OS I've tried, on a phone or a tablet. It's the first that doesn't feel so digital and robotic that you want to put your ear against it and listen to it beep and hum.</p>
<p>It retains all that power you crave with Android apps, but puts them in a human-friendly package. It's fast and responsive. It's pre-loaded with great Google apps you'll use right from the get go. You're going to want to dive into Ice Cream Sandwich and start exploring. And here's what you'll find.</p>
<h3><span class="modfont">The Little Big Touches</span></h3>
<p>Everything just works a little better than it has before. Using a Samsung Galaxy Nexus running Ice Cream Sandwich side by side with a Samsung Galaxy SII running <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/gingerbread" class="hidden_link">Gingerbread</a> was revelatory. The latter felt clunky and boxy and crude in comparison. The Galaxy Nexus was both prettier to look at and easier to use.</p>
<p>Let's start with appearances. Take the the phone icon. In stock Gingerbread, it's a <s>green box with a white phone in the center</s> plain green phone. If you look closely you'll see shading near the ear and mouth piece but for the most part it looks, well, flat and shitty. In ICS, the icon is a borderless handset that floats and hovers. It has rich shading and color differentiation to suggest depth and contour. It looks inviting. It says call me.</p>
<p>Those subtle interface enhancements are everywhere. Everything in ICS is a bit more textured, more rounded, more thoughtfully designed. Even the system font, a bastardized mashup of Helvetica, Myriad and a few others, looks smoother and more modern than the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/droid" class="hidden_link">Droid</a> family that preceded it. It is far more visually appealing than Gingerbread ever was.</p>
<p>Even better, there is so much about ICS that's easier to manage. For example, a permanent link to the system settings lives in the notifications tray. So no matter where you are in the OS, you are no more than one swipe and tap away from total control. Notifications themselves are also greatly improved. They still come at you from the top of the screen, but you can dismiss them one at a time now by sliding them to the left or right. On the home screens a new persistent icon on the bottom row leads to all your applications. It's there on every home screen, ready to launch you to all your apps. You can also add four other apps to that row, so you now have ready and easy access to frequently used ones, like your browser or email.</p>
<p>The four longstanding icons that made up your home row have been completely rethought. The icons for Search and Menu are gone. In their place is a single Recent Apps icon that lets you swap functions, or kill running apps with a swipe. (Also notable: while the home row was once on the bezel, it is now moved to the display itself, and made from softkeys that rotate when you rotate the phone).</p>
<p>Individual apps navigate better now as well. In the Books app, for example, the more animated page turns of ICS might catch your eye, but the real meat is the way you access options. Instead of hitting the bezel button, you tap a page, and iconography representing options shows up in the top of the screen, along with a search box. Tap it again for a list of options. It's just faster, and better, and more intuitive.</p>
<p>There's more. ICS is a labyrinth of tweaks and touches. But the bottom line is that navigation is far, far better in dozens of small but important ways. All of these are minor adjustments that add up to less time spent <em>trying</em> to do things and more time spent actually doing them. They mean fewer taps to manage your apps.</p>
<h4><span class="modfont">Closer to Fine</span></h4>
<p>Ice Cream Sandwich has none of the skeuomorphic touches that you find in iOS, and it even eschewed some that were in Gingerbread. While sometimes this is a very good thing (there is no ugly, screen real estate-hogging embossed leather chrome, for example) other times it's puzzling.</p>
<p>For example, when you scroll to the bottom of a screen instead of bouncing, it glows blue. The bounce works because that's what often happens in real life when you pull something past the point where it is meant to go: it springs back. The blue glow is both less noticeable, and less obvious in its intent. Am I at the bottom, or did I just irradiate my apps?</p>
<p>But often the willingness to experiment visually pays off. For example, when Google replaced Contacts with People. In Ice Cream Sandwich, Contacts are gone, as an app at least. In its place is an app called People that pulls in various services, like <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/twitter" class="hidden_link">Twitter</a> or Google Plus, in addition to pure address book data. It directly shows status updates and in some cases even high resolution photos. In Gingerbread, the Contacts icon is a <s>faceless human silhouette</s> peering robot. The icon for People, on the other hand, doesn't look like a person at all. And yet it smiles at you. In other words, it's been made more friendly. And of course, this is yet another example of Android trying to become friendlier, and more person-focused.</p>
<h4><span class="modfont">The Good Gets Great</span></h4>
<p>There are major changes, too, the kinds of sweeping overhauls that you expect from a major release. And they're occasionally terrific, like the overhauled Camera app's automatic panorama stitcher. All you need to do is pivot the phone and you can capture stunning panoramic landscapes. I call this one Pumpkin on the Beach:</p>
<p>Meanwhile, photos fire in what seems like real time, the shutter speed is mind-blowing. Tapping the screen not only focuses, but actually works very well. Face tracking was also nearly flawless. Bottom line: You're going to use the hell out of this camera.</p>
<p>The other major renovation, not to be underestimated? Typing. Android keyboard has always made me want to kill things. One of Android's selling points I've often heard is that you can radically customize the keyboard with an app like Swype. That's great. But the problem is that you basically need a third-party keyboard in Android. No more. The keyboard in Ice Cream Sandwich is positively zippy. It's responsive, accurate, and the predictive text works quite well.</p>
<p>Here's the same chunk of text, fired off as quickly as I could input it, using default keyboard in Gingerbread and Ice Cream Sandwich.</p>
<p><strong>Ice Cream Sandwich:</strong></p>
<blockquote>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">So, I'm just trying to writs something s bit longer here, as quickly as I can withour! Regard for typos or errors.<br /> I just want to see how quickly I can use the keyboard, and in fact it seems greatly improved.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>Gingerbread:</strong></p>
<blockquote>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">So, Im just tryibg to write something a bit lobger here as quivkly as i can without revard for tyops or errors.<br /> I just want to see how quickky i canbuse ge keyboard and i face it seems greatly imporved.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It's sweet relief. But.</p>
<h4><span class="modfont">You're Trying Too Hard</span></h4>
<p>Sometimes Ice Cream Sandwich literally pleads with you to enjoy it. Take the built-in video effects. They do things like swell up your nose or mouth, or shrink your face. They're kind of amazing, when you first encounter them. Because it doesn't just alter one spot on the screen where the OS predicts your nose or mouth may be; it actually recognizes your facial features and distorts them even as you move your head from side to side or back and forth. In the reviewer's guide for the video effects, Google offers the following guidance: "Note: These are fun." Thank you, Google. That is good to know.</p>
<p>And then there is the built-in social. Google has bet big on Plus. Google is using Ice Cream Sandwich to push Plus like beer in a bar. Plus is everywhere. It comes with apps for Plus and G+ Messenger built in. Your photos are automatically uploaded to Google Plus. Sharing options, even for media, all lead to Plus.</p>
<p>You aren't always going to want that Google Plus integration. Very many people who I will never attempt to email, call or message are listed my People app because they are Google Plus contacts. Although you can select which circles to display, if, like me, you haven't invested much time in setting up your circles you end up with thousands of acquaintances or no one at all. Worse, when I tried to send an email to my wife it fired one off to me instead. Why? She had never filled out her Google Plus profile. Yet for some reason, her Google Plus info was populated with my address data. There was no way to edit this. I eventually turned off the option to sync my Plus contacts because it was all too annoying.</p>
<p>I admire the attempt, however, and it largely works. An android is not simply a robot. It's a robot with human characteristics. If there is one thing that Google's Android OS has lacked, it's humanity. While extremely advanced, it has never been personable.</p>
<h4><span class="modfont">Man vs. Machine</span></h4>
<p>Ice Cream Sandwich is Google's attempt to make Android not only more advanced from a technology perspective, but also more human. It is sprinkled with little traces of humanism throughout. From the People app that's front and center by default, to the deep-if-flawed social integration with Google Plus, to those zany video effects. I mean, you unlock it with your face. Ice Cream Sandwich is Google's attempt to design for human beings. And it pulls it off, mostly.</p>
<p>And of course, Ice Cream Sandwich is a brilliant technology achievement. It's loaded with powerful features, like a great data management tool, built-in photo editing, and NFC that enables you to do things like share photos or <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/" class="hidden_link">videos</a> from phone to phone simply by tapping two of them together.</p>
<p>This tech forward focus can eventually be a downside. An old Android phone typically feels aged beyond its years. Because when your advantage is technology, time is always your biggest enemy.</p>
<p>And in many ways it is still rough around the edges. It lacks the polish of iOS or Mango. Scroll through a list of albums in Rdio on ICS and iOS 5 side by side and it's apparent how much slicker the latter's UI is. The iOS version moves at more variable and natural speeds and glides to a stop. Android moves more jerkily and stops more abruptly. (You can alleviate this, somewhat, by forcing GPU rendering for third party apps, but it is still noticeable.) The corners are more squared off on the album icons in Android, giving it a boxier, less sophisticated appearance. Even in native apps, like the Web browser, I noticed that text tended to skitter up the screen, rather than flow.</p>
<p>But overall it's a powerful, wonderful, visually interesting upgrade. It's certainly the most user friendly version of Android to date. It's more navigable, more responsive, and all around a better experience. As a longtime Android user, I really dig it. I find it compelling, even. Yet as a recent iOS 5 convert, I'm not sure it's enough to make me go back.</p>
<p>Here's a final example to illustrate what I mean. Ice Cream Sandwich makes it really easy to take a photo and share it with all my contacts and circles on Google Plus. iOS makes it really easy to take a photo and share with my father on a letterpress card in the United States mail. The mail is decidedly lower tech. But in its own way, it's also far more enjoyable. For most people, technology outpaces upgrade cycles. In two years, style and flash can fade. But fun can persist. Fun matters.</p>
<p>Competence is one thing, but I prefer joy.</p>
<p><em>This <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5860502/ice-cream-sandwich-review-its-man-versus-machine" target="_blank">post</a> originally appeared at <a href="http://gizmodo.com/" target="_blank">Gizmodo</a>.</em></p><h3>A Look At Ice Cream Sandwich </h3>
<img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/4ec56eed69bedd804c00002b-400-300/a-look-at-ice-cream-sandwich.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p><em>Source: <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5860502/ice-cream-sandwich-review-its-man-versus-machine" target="_blank">Gizmodo</a></em></p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>A Look At Ice Cream Sandwich </h3>
<img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/4ec56f096bb3f71440000029-400-300/a-look-at-ice-cream-sandwich.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p><em>Source: <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5860502/ice-cream-sandwich-review-its-man-versus-machine" target="_blank">Gizmodo</a></em></p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>A Look At Ice Cream Sandwich </h3>
<img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/4ec56f2decad04ff36000029-400-300/a-look-at-ice-cream-sandwich.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p><em>Source: <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5860502/ice-cream-sandwich-review-its-man-versus-machine" target="_blank">Gizmodo</a></em></p></p>
<br/><br/><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/androids-newest-operating-system-the-best-most-human-friendly-version-yet-2011-11#a-look-at-ice-cream-sandwich-4">See the rest of the story at Business Insider</a> http://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-just-created-the-ultimate-flu-killer-2011-11Scientists Just Created The Ultimate Flu Killerhttp://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-just-created-the-ultimate-flu-killer-2011-11
Mon, 07 Nov 2011 12:03:00 -0500Jesus Diaz
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/4eb7fe206bb3f7143c00006b/flu-vaccine-production-scientist-lab.jpg" border="0" alt="Flu Vaccine Production Scientist Lab" /></p><p>University of Texas Southwestern's scientists have created a new flu vaccine that can protect us against any kind of flu, not just one type.</p>
<p>Unlike the current type of vaccines, this can even protect us if the virus mutates.<!-- %JUMP:More &raquo;% --></p>
<p>That's the big problem of the current vaccines: every year, medical experts guess what's going to be the dominant flu strain and create a vaccine using a weakened version of that virus.</p>
<p>When it gets injected, our body gets to know the weakened virus safely, producing cells that can neutralize that virus if a real attack occurs. The problem is that, if that virus mutates, this prevention becomes useless. That is why people may get the flu even when they are vaccinated.</p>
<p>The team led by Dr. Beatrice Fontoura took a completely different approach:</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">"What we are doing is something different. We are actually stimulating our own response which is already there &ndash; boost it &ndash; to fight an infection."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Their solution boosts our natural immunological system, targeting a protein in our bodies called REDD-1.</p>
<p>Fontoura's team discovered that, when REDD-1 levels are low in a cell, the flu virus can easily infect the cell. The vaccine increases the protein's levels, creating a shield that is impossible for the virus to penetrate.</p>
<p>According to the team, the new vaccine is so effective that it can even protect us against the Spanish Flu, the H1N1 influenza virus that killed between 50 and 100 million in 1918, mostly healthy young adults. Another deadly H1N1 virus was the Swine Flu, which may have infected 11% to 21% of the world's population in 2009.</p>
<p>Sadly, the vaccine is still not ready for mass distribution yet. They have to complete the usual FDA procedures to be introduced in the market, a process that may take years. [<a href="http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2011/11/04/north-texas-researchers-creating-ultimate-flu-shot/">CBS</a>]</p>
<p><em>This <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5856999/scientist-create-the-definitive-flu-killer" target="_blank">post</a> originally appeared at <a href="http://gizmodo.com/" target="_blank">Gizmodo</a>.</em></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-just-created-the-ultimate-flu-killer-2011-11#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/this-modernist-house-first-insipired-steve-jobs-2011-10This Modernist House First Inspired Steve Jobshttp://www.businessinsider.com/this-modernist-house-first-insipired-steve-jobs-2011-10
Mon, 31 Oct 2011 13:57:00 -0400Jesus Diaz
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/4eaedc546bb3f7da2d000011/steve-jobs-house.jpg" border="0" alt="Steve Jobs House" /></p><p>Like everyone else in the planet, I'm reading Steve Jobs' biography. Finding the origin of his character and taste is truly fascinating.</p>
<p>Like the influence of his very first home on his perception of what design for the masses should be.</p>
<h2><a href="javascript:void();" class="sl-start">This Modernist House First Inspired Steve Jobs &rarr;</a></h2>
<p><a href="http://gizmodo.com/5763219/exclusive-shots-of-steve-jobs-demolished-house">Jobs' first home</a> was a Joseph Eichler-built house.</p>
<p>Like many people in California, Jobs' adoptive parents lived in one of the 11,000 homes built by Eichler in 12 communities all over that state.</p>
<p>The <em>Eichlers</em>, as they are commonly known, are simple, clean, single-story open-plan houses, with exposed wood beams and large, top to bottom glass panels.</p>
<p>Eichler was influenced himself by Frank Lloyd Wright, as he lived for a while in one of the famous architect's Usonian houses.</p>
<p>Wright coined the word Usonia to refer to his idea of architecture and landscaping for the common American citizen, home designs that were simple, small and embedded in the environment.</p>
<p>The real estate developer thought he had to bring Wright's design philosophy to the masses and he succeeded.</p>
<p>Jobs had warm memories of this house. He loved it. He told to his biographer that this house greatly influenced his vision of what design for the masses should be:</p>
<p>"I love it when you can bring really great design and simple capability to something that doesn't cost much. It was the original vision for <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/apple">Apple</a>." It's too bad that he didn't live to see what would have been his ideal house&mdash;to be built in the terrain <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5763219/exclusive-shots-of-steve-jobs-demolished-house">where the Jackling House was located</a>&mdash;which follows the Usonian ideal as well, although in a larger scale.</p>
<p><em>This <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5854889/the-house-that-first-inspired-steve-jobs" target="_blank">post</a> originally appeared at <a href="http://gizmodo.com/" target="_blank">Gizmodo</a>.</em></p><h3>This Modernist House First Inspired Steve Jobs</h3>
<img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/4eaedec66bb3f7393600000a-400-300/this-modernist-house-first-inspired-steve-jobs.jpg" alt="" />
<br/><br/><h3>This Modernist House First Inspired Steve Jobs</h3>
<img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/4eaeded969bedd6845000004-400-300/this-modernist-house-first-inspired-steve-jobs.jpg" alt="" />
<br/><br/><h3>This Modernist House First Inspired Steve Jobs</h3>
<img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/4eaedee969bedd584500000b-400-300/this-modernist-house-first-inspired-steve-jobs.jpg" alt="" />
<br/><br/><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/this-modernist-house-first-insipired-steve-jobs-2011-10#this-modernist-house-first-inspired-steve-jobs-4">See the rest of the story at Business Insider</a> http://www.businessinsider.com/the-currency-of-choice-in-prisons-is-postage-stamps-2011-10An Inside Look At The Dark And Twisted Economy Of Prisonhttp://www.businessinsider.com/the-currency-of-choice-in-prisons-is-postage-stamps-2011-10
Fri, 28 Oct 2011 12:48:00 -0400Gizmodo
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/4eaade1beab8eab44100003c/prison-economy-stuff.jpg" border="0" alt="Prison economy stuff" /></p><p>A movie-goer's concept of prison economy is likely that it's a cigarette-fueled barter system. That may be part of it, but it only scratches the surface. The truth is a violent world of sex, drugs and... postage stamps?</p>
<p>First off, the days of prisoners being allowed to have two packs of cigarettes a week are long gone. In California, and most other states, there is a full ban on any tobacco products. Regardless, smokers want their fix, and if you're familiar with the principles of supply and demand, you will understand that the price of tobacco in prison is astronomical. In fact, it can be even more expensive than dope, according to Officer Eric Patao:</p>
<p>"Tobacco right now is a huge commodity. It's actually more expensive than marijuana, depending on supply and demand. A lot of these guys are just addicts with the nicotine and they've just got to have it at all costs. They'll jeopardize their loved ones on the streets to try to smuggle it in. They don't care."</p>
<p>Tobacco, drugs, and other contraband enter jails through the same (usually uncomfortable) channels that cellphones do, which <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5853495/yes-prisoners-carry-iphones-in-their-asses?tag=lockdown">we covered in depth yesterday</a>. And prices are highly variable depending on what you're in for: the more secure the unit, the harder to get contraband, the higher the price. According to Officer Eric Patao, "A $15 can of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugler_%28tobacco%29">Bugler</a> tobacco can go for as much as $500 in prison."</p>
<p>For drugs, the same laws of supply/demand and unit security apply. "Dope can be as much as 10 times the street value," says Officer Patao. "An ounce of crystal meth after it is broken down can go for several thousand." Several thousand sounds like a lot of money, but bear in mind that in prison we're almost never talking about dollar bills.</p>
<p>"With anything, you can pay with the price of stamps, canteen, sexual favors, hits, straight cash, whatever has monetary value," said Patao.</p>
<p>"Canteen" basically means food, which can be ordered from the catalogs mentioned in the video above. More on those in a second. As for hits? I had to ask, and Officer Patao confirmed that it was exactly what I was hoping it wasn't. Hits are an "attack on another prisoner. Just like a contract hit." That's a pretty goddamn chilling way of paying for a handful of cigarettes.</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, violence is also the most common form of bill collection. "If inmates don't get paid then criminal acts are going to follow," said Officer Patao. "Violence is going to follow... Then who gets hurt? Often staff members who are trying to break it up."</p>
<p>I asked Officer Patao if weapons come in through the same channels as other contraband goods. He said not really, because they just make their own. Yes, we know. <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5853104/the-many-insane-flavors-of-improvised-prison-weapons?tag=lockdown">Holy crap, do we know</a>. (If you missed our piece on inmate manufactured weapons, make sure you click that link.)</p>
<p>Maybe most surprising about the prison economy? The predominant currency is postage stamps. They can be procured easily and legally, and inmates are allowed to have them (though only as many as 40 at a time). This availability makes it the de facto form of payment, and here's a little fun fact: postage stamps are actually considered legal tender in the United States. That means that, technically, you could show up at <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/best-buy" class="hidden_link">Best Buy</a> with a briefcase full of stamps and purchase a <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5842231/lg-50pz950-3dtv-reviewed-one-of-the-best-tvs-out-there?tag=bestmodo">50-inch 3DTV</a> with them. Everyone in the store would hate you, but legally, they're supposed to accept it. [Update: as commenters have pointed out, they are not, in fact, legally required to accept it. However they <em>could</em> accept it as legal tender.]</p>
<p>There are legal purchases as well, of course, through a catalog system explained by Sam Johnson in the video above. Inmates work various jobs (commonly earning about 50-cents an hour, plus or minus, depending on the work), and that money goes into their accounts, which is primarily how they pay for catalog items (though their families can add money to their trust accounts, too).</p>
<p>What inmates can get differs prison to prison and unit to unit. The <a href="https://www.accesscatalog.com/">Access Catalog</a> has the big-ticket items, like TVs and radios. The biggest, nicest TV you can get seemed to be a 13-inch RCA flatscreen for $216, with clear plastic and no speakers. None of the TVs have speakers, but as we learned in <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5852733/the-diy-wizards-of-san-quentin?tag=lockdown">Monday's Prison DIY piece,</a>there are some clever hacks to get around that.</p>
<p><a href="https://walkenhorsts.com/">Walkenhorst's</a> has more small-ticket items. Candybars are a buck a pop. Just-add-water Asian food like Annie Chun's noodle soups are $5. They can get shoes from the likes of Adidas, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/nike" class="hidden_link">Nike</a>, Reebok, and other major brands, but they can only be black and white (no red Jordans for you, jailbird), and all other sorts of personal items. The coolest thing I saw on Walkenhorst's was customizable CDs where you pick your tracks for about $2 a pop. Cool that these guys can still make mixtapes, like an imprisoned John Cusack from <em>High <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/fidelity" class="hidden_link">Fidelity</a></em>.</p>
<p>Of course, network TV and Mars bars can only last a person so long, especially if that person is more accustomed to a wild and reckless lifestyle&mdash;and with most of these inmates carrying a life sentence, that's probably a safe assumption. That's why the barter system, as Machiavellian and downright terrifying as it might sound, has to exist. Since the beginning of recorded history, human beings have found a way to create altered states of consciousness (i.e. get effed up). If you think a little thing like prison can stand in the way of millennia of human evolution and resourcefulness, you are very much mistaken.</p>
<p><a href="http://gizmodo.com/lockdown">Lockdown</a> is all about the technology inside prisons, from weapons to hacks, contraband to cooking, and everything in between. We're bringing it to you directly from San Quentin State Prison in California. You can read the introduction to the series <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5852687/technology-in-americas-most-notorious-prison">here</a>, and see all of the other posts <a href="http://gizmodo.com/lockdown">here</a>. Tomorrow we'll be doing some cooking, so get your bibs on and check back.</p>
<p>Head over to <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/gizmodo" class="hidden_link">Gizmodo</a> to see the <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5853770/deep-inside-prisons-dark-and-tangled-economy">Prison Econ 101 video</a>.</p>
<p><em>This <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5853770/deep-inside-prisons-dark-and-tangled-economy">post</a> originally appeared on <a href="http://gizmodo.com/">Gizmodo</a>.</em></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-currency-of-choice-in-prisons-is-postage-stamps-2011-10#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/whats-really-killing-your-iphone-4s-battery-2011-10What’s Really Killing Your iPhone 4S Battery?http://www.businessinsider.com/whats-really-killing-your-iphone-4s-battery-2011-10
Fri, 28 Oct 2011 11:40:00 -0400Adrian Covert
<p>Battery performance on the <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/iphone">iPhone</a> 4S <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/27/iphone_4s_battery_problems/">isn't quite as good</a> as it was on the <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/iphone-4">iPhone 4</a>.</p>
<p>Some chalk it up to the <a href="http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/iphone-4-vs-iphone-4s-battery-comparison-17-10-2011/">more power hungry</a> dual-core processor, which makes sense. Kind of.</p>
<p>But others are attributing the problems to early bugs related to <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/ios">iOS</a> 5 power management, or the unnecessary use of GPS location services.</p>
<p>According to the UK Register, people have been using the iOS app <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/system-activity-monitor/id306192663?mt=8">System Activity Monitor</a> to try and diagnose what has caused the greatest (or abnormal) drain on their battery. Here's a list of the suspects:</p>
<ul>
<li>Corrupted <a href="http://www.macworld.com/article/163200/article.html">iCloud contacts</a>.</li>
<li>A bug where apps enter a never ending crash loop.</li>
<li>Using location services to <a href="http://www.idownloadblog.com/2011/10/27/tip-cure-iphone-4s-battery/">change your timezone</a> or to trigger reminders.</li>
<li><a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/itunes">iTunes</a> wi-fi sync.</li>
<li>Sending <a href="http://www.evdoinfo.com/content/view/3770/64/">error reports</a> to <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/apple">Apple</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p>If your iPhone battery life seems egregiously poor, try tweaking some of these settings. If it still doesn't work, hopefully it's a problem Apple can fix with a software update. [<a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/27/iphone_4s_battery_problems/">The UK Register</a>]</p>
<p><em>This <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5854193/whats-really-killing-your-iphone-4s-battery" target="_blank">post</a> originally appeared at <a href="http://gizmodo.com/" target="_blank">Gizmodo</a>.</em></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/whats-really-killing-your-iphone-4s-battery-2011-10#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-amazon-kindle-steve-jobs-2011-09Jeff Bezos Is The Next Steve Jobshttp://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-amazon-kindle-steve-jobs-2011-09
Thu, 29 Sep 2011 11:05:00 -0400Mat Honan
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/4e848a5269bedd1d5100004f/jeff-bezos.jpg" border="0" alt="jeff bezos" /></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/jeff-bezos" class="hidden_link">Jeff Bezos</a> <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5844611/were-live-at-the-amazon-tablet-event?tag=kindle">broke about a dozen legs yesterday</a>. His presentation announcing Amazon's new <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/kindle" class="hidden_link">Kindle</a> lineup was entertaining, memorable and most of all, convincing. He sold it. And in doing so, made it pretty clear that he's our next <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/steve-jobs" class="hidden_link">Steve Jobs</a>.</p>
<p>Bezos owned the stage; he was a lion on the savannah. He was stylish and witty and smart, tossing out thought bombs like they were free t-shirts. He poked at his competitors (Hi, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/apple" class="hidden_link">Apple</a>!) without coming across as petty. Everything was rehearsed down to the second, ensuring there would be no major snares or snags where things bombed onstage (Hi, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/microsoft" class="hidden_link">Microsoft</a>!). He also got in and out. He made his case and then got the fuck off the stage, knowing better than to drone on and on (Hi, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/google" class="hidden_link">Google</a>!) until everyone was bored out of their shoes.</p>
<p>He also did a good job with secrecy. Yeah, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/techcrunch" class="hidden_link">TechCrunch</a> had a nice scoop on the Fire in advance, and sure there were some predictions that there would be a new e-ink device released too, but I don't think anyone was expecting to see an <a href="http://gizmodo.com/kindle">entire family of new Kindles</a>. Or that the high end new tablet would be a mere $200. $200!</p>
<p>And so when it was all over, the press, the great opinionator that drives purchasing decisions, was utterly flabbergasted. It was totally Jobsed, so to speak. Hypnotized and drawn in by the mind-blowing Bezos.</p>
<p>Much of that that is because of his passion. You can see it in his eyes, full of zeal and bordering on crazy. He isn't just conning you, he <em>believes</em> in it. He feels strongly that he's got the right product, at the right time. And so watch him and you will too.</p>
<p>And yet, it's not just about his salesmanship. "Jeff Bezos is the new Ron Popeil" is a whole other story. He mirrors Apple's former CEO in a host of other ways as well.</p>
<p>Most obviously, he's a founder/CEO. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/amazon" class="hidden_link">Amazon</a> is his. Yes, it's a public company, but it goes where his vision takes it. It follows his mind into markets. Amazon <em>is</em> Jeff Bezos. Without him it would be adrift.</p>
<p>He also knows when to act. Amazon will muscle into all sorts of areas where he realizes he can kick the status quo out of the way. Amazon is the rare behemoth that can pivot; so ready to tackle new ventures that it is easy to forget that it was once ostensibly a simple bookseller. I've long held that that Bezos doesn't get enough credit for reckless ambition. Like Jobs, he's delightfully willing to take risks.</p>
<p>It plunged from retail into full on Web services. Need to store some data? Amazon's S3 will do that for you. Want to host some computing power? Try Amazon EC2. Today so much of the damn web runs on it that when it went down earlier this year it took <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/netflix" class="hidden_link">Netflix</a>, Reddit, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/foursquare" class="hidden_link">Foursquare</a>, and a host of others out with it.</p>
<p>Then there is the Kindle. Bezos didn't wait for the ebook market to explode, he created it. He went out and got it, building it from the bottom up with an entire hardware, software, and content ecosystem. (What's up, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/itunes" class="hidden_link">iTunes</a>?).</p>
<p>In fact, Amazon was ahead of Apple in terms of building the ecosystem. On the day Apple announced the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/ipod" class="hidden_link">iPod</a>, it handed out a stack of CDs with the iPods themselves, because it was the only way to hand out devices pre-loaded with music and still meet industry licensing terms. It was nearly a year and a half before the iTunes Store would come online.</p>
<p>You could buy a book for your Kindle on day one.</p>
<p>What's more, his devices are consistently great. They just work. Yeah, that first Kindle was a bit clunky and expensive by today's standards. So was the first iPod.</p>
<p>But, you might say, Steve Jobs didn't just focus on Apple. He had <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/next" class="hidden_link">NeXT</a> and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/pixar" class="hidden_link">Pixar</a>; he revolutionized the computer graphics industry.</p>
<p>Very true. But Jeff Bezos has <a href="http://www.blueorigin.com/">started a second company as well</a>. He's going to the moon. Just watch.</p>
<p><em>This <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5844863/jeff-bezos-is-the-new-steve-jobs">post</a> originally appeared at <a href="http://gizmodo.com">Gizmodo</a>.</em></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-amazon-kindle-steve-jobs-2011-09#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-use-the-new-facebook-to-see-who-unfriends-you-2011-9How To Use The New Facebook To See Who Unfriends Youhttp://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-use-the-new-facebook-to-see-who-unfriends-you-2011-9
Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:31:00 -0400Sam Biddle
<p><a href="http://gizmodo.com/5843030/what-is-facebook-timeline-only-your-whole-life"><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/4e7cc3b76bb3f74c0d000005/facebook-unfriend.jpg" border="0" alt="facebook unfriend" />Facebook Timeline is pretty spectacular</a>, giving a panoramic view of achievements, love, birth, death, and a lot of binge drinking photos. But what else does it provide? A window into social treachery: a list of those who've unfriended you.</p>
<p>It's extremely easy. First, <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5843053/get-facebooks-new-timeline-now/gallery/1?tag=facebook">get Timeline early</a>. Then scroll down to a particular year of your life. Say, 2010. In that year, I made 51 friends, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/facebook" class="hidden_link">Facebook</a> tells me (that's it?!). I can click that number and see a list. Great! I'm still friends with almost all of them, which Timeline notes. Aw.</p>
<p>Except next to a few names, I have the option to "Add Friend." This means I <em>was</em> friends with the person in 2010 (or whichever year in the past), but not anymore. If you weren't the one who axed them, <em>this is proof the person unfriended you</em> between then and now. Now pardon me while I bawl my god damned eyes out. <em>WHAT DID I EVER DO TO YOU, KIRAN?</em> [<a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/how-to-find-out-who-has-unfriended-you-on-the-new">BuzzFeed</a>]</p>
<p><em>This <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5843318">post</a> originally appeared at <a href="http://gizmodo.com">Gizmodo</a>.&nbsp;</em></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-use-the-new-facebook-to-see-who-unfriends-you-2011-9#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p>